
Lowell 

Sir Launfa' 

n Other PoEr 



■?ANC!S 



,'\ND b,M 



ii„. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



Chap. Copyright iVo. 

8helf_-.A_l^^p^ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



/ 



€\)e ^ratffing Scries of lEnglisIj Classics 

LOWELL 

The Vision of Sir Launfal 
and other poems 



WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
BY 

FRANCIS R. LANE 

DIRECTOR OF THE HIGH SCHOOLS, WASHINGTON, D.C. 



Boston 

ALLYN AND BACON 
1900 



Library of Conprre^a 




Iwo Copies Received 


fSl-^^' 


JAN 17 1901 




\\\ 


\o^^>b 


hoQ/..^.^MJ- 


' I 


SECOND COPY 





COPYEIGHT, 19 00, 
BY FEANCIS R. LANE. 



% 



NorfajDoti iPress 

J. S. Cushinj; & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Introduction v 

Text : 

The Vision of Sir Launfal 1 

Summer Storm 14 

Allegra 17 

The Rose : A Ballad 18 

Rhoecus . . • , 21 

To a Pine Tree 26 

To the Past 28 

The Oak 31 

The Birch Tree 33 

To the Dandelion 34 

On a Portrait of Dante by Giotto 36 

A Fable for Critics 38 

What Mr. Robinson thinks 50 

The Courtin' 52 

Notes 55 



iii 



INTRODUCTION. 



Old CambridgEj in the thirties, was hedged about with 
the dignity that should surround the oldest seat of learning 
in America. Its intellectual atmosphere was undisturbed 
by the proximity of Boston; the struggle of the world of 
business and politics was far away ; it was distinctively 
the center of literary culture. The traditions of the aca- 
demic town were always inspiring to youth. In 1834, when 
Lowell entered Harvard, there was, in addition, the stimulus 
of men of a new stamp among the college dons — men of 
warm hearts and keen sympathies as well as of high scholar- 
ship, men who demolished the barrier of ice which prece- 
dent had established between professor and " scholar," and, 
coming into close touch with the undergraduates, quickened 
and warmed their natures and implanted among them a 
deep love for literature and the literary life. 

Lowell entered the college at the age of fifteen. The 
student world then cared little for politics or current affairs ; 
hardly a ripple of interest was stirred by the November 
state elections. Perhaps not five men in the college saw a 
daily paper. Longfellow, fresh from European travel and 
study, began, in 1836, his long career as Smith Professor 
of Modern Literature. Dr. Hale describes his presence 
as a benediction to the college. Young as he was, he 
had achieved an enviable position as a writer, which, 

V 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

combined with the charm of his personality and the inspira- 
tion of his love for letters, made his influence largely 
responsible for the prevailing devotion to literary culture. 
Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats were the fashion. Young 
blood tingled with enthusiasm as each new volume of 
poems was reprinted from the English editions. Tenny- 
son's earlier poems could not be bought, but a borrowed 
copy went the rounds of the college. "Everybody who 
had any sense knew that a great poet had been born, as 
well as we know it now." Such an atmosphere fosters 
creative effort ; it is but a step from appreciation to imita- 
tion. A considerable group of students, plastic to such 
influences, endeavored to realize in themselves their poet 
ideals, in thought, action, and the written word. Lowell, 
from his freshman year, had been something of a free-lance, 
irritating his instructors by an indifference to the require- 
ments of the prescribed courses, which he made little effort 
to subdue. His heart was set upon wide digressions in study, 
upon chance reading, upon much composition, upon animated 
literary discussions with fellow-members of Alpha Delta 
Phi, the secret society founded in defiance to the ban of the 
college. Perhaps this society in some way controlled the 
appointment of the editors of the college magazine, or, it 
may be, that it had gathered to it the men of the strongest 
native gift for writing. The five editors of Lowell's senior 
year were all Alpha Deltas, — Ruf us King, George Warren 
Lippitt, Woodman Scates, Nathan Hale, Jr., and James 
Russell Lowell. 

The poems published in the Harvardiana before and dur- 
ing this year of editorship gained for Lowell his classmates' 
recognition of his literary abilities, and brought him the 
honors of "class poet/' without a rival and without a dis- 



INTR OD UCTION. Vll 

senting voice. It is interesting to note that the poem from 
the same pen which in after years so stirred the North 
with the Biglow Papers, was a stinging satire on the aboli- 
tionists, and that it was not delivered in person or by proxy, 
but was put before the students of the college in the col- 
umns of the Harvardiana. Lowell's long indifference to 
college discipline had resulted in his being '^rusticated" for 
the six weeks ending commencement day. Dr. Hale says, 
in his reminiscences of Lowell, that when the news of 
the class honor and of the college punishment reached 
Dr. Lowell in Kome, he relieved his impatience with, 
" Oh, dear ! James promised me that he would quit writing 
poetry, and would go to work." 

Perhaps family tradition held letters in less repute than 
the law. Possibly Lowell himself, though not in the least 
doubt as to the selection of his calling, if his tastes alone 
were to be consulted, felt that even a meager support, as a 
man of letters, was doubtful. The argument for the serious 
professions prevailed. He plunged into the study of Black- 
stone, was admitted to the bar, and in 1840 "hung out his 
shingle." My First Client is a humorous description of his 
awakening from dreams of business to the fact that the 
man who stood before him, whose cause, in his fancy, he 
was eloquently to plead, was a sign painter, come to col- 
lect his bill. His brief struggle for clients was never very 
keen. Much of his time was given to writing, many of 
his contributions of this date appearing in the Boston 
Miscellany, a magazine started by his classmate, Nathan 
Hale, Jr., in 1842. 

As was to be expected, Lowell abandoned the law, and, 
with Eobert Carter as an associate, ventured upon the pub- 
lication of the Pioneer (1842). The elegant N. P. Willis, 



viii INTBOBUCTION. 

the arbiter of young literary reputations, found in the 
editor's effort little to herald as promising : " J. E. Lowell, 
a man of original and decided genius, has started a maga- 
zine in Boston. The first number lies before me, and it 
justifies our expectations, namely, that a man of genius is 
a very unfit editor for a periodical." Later in life his work 
with the Atlantic and the North American Review proved 
him " perhaps the best literary editor whom the history of 
American journalism has yet discovered." 

His love for Maria White strengthened Lowell's ardor 
for poetry, and caused him to collect many of his fugitive 
pieces, which, with other unpublished poems, he put forth 
in 1841, under the title of A Yearns Life. He was but 
twenty-two years of age ; his life had not been warmed 
with long contact with his fellow-men; he knew little of 
life's real struggles ; he had as yet but half-formed convic- 
tions ; his sympathies were keenly literary, not deeply emo- 
tional ; it was but natural that some of these early poems 
should be crude, yet there were some that presaged the 
dawn of his genius. 

An income from his own labor was assured in a small 
way by an arrangement with the Standard, a weekly anti- 
slavery journal published in New York, and by lecturing 
at five dollars per night. With the important question of 
support settled, Lowell married in 1844. His wife's influ- 
ence added to his keen intellect the fire of emotions deeply 
stirred. Through her the bigness of his nature was aroused, 
and he became active in the discussion of the great ques- 
tions of right and wrong and justice that were agitating the 
North and South in connection with slavery. 

The first volume of the Biglow Papers (1848) was a collec- 
tion of poems directed with satiric fervor against the 



INTRODUCTION, IX 

politicians, north and south, who, in the interest of in- 
creased slave territory, were rushing the country into the 
Mexican War. This effort seemed iniquitous to Lowell's 
New England conscience. Convictions now came in abun- 
dance, and were voiced with no uncertain sound. The poet 
was not upon the popular side ; the events of later years 
have shown us that his judgment was at fault, and that the 
war was a necessary step to the ultimate settlement of the 
slavery question. Yet common sense, high principle, and 
pungent sarcasm made these papers powerful as polemics, 
and won the hearts of Northern people. The Biglow Papers, 
however, have a value independent of the issues which called 
them into being. The weapon for the conflict came to the 
poet's hand unsought ; he used it with impassioned vigor, 
with no intent to create enduring literature. The Canter- 
bury Tales are valuable as a study of the life and manners 
of Chaucer's times ; like these, the Biglow Papers portray 
the character and convictions, the clothes and queer dialect, 
of the New England farmer, his hard-headedness, his Cal- 
vinistic creed, his cheery wit and stern force. It was a 
surprise to the poet that these poems caught the attention 
of England, and won for him enduring reputation abroad. 
Lowell was a New England man of pure stock ; he realized 
in himself perhaps the best that conditions of New England 
climate, culture, and religion might produce. He could not 
be the descendant of generations of lawyers and ministers, 
" the Brahmin class of New England," and fail of a strong 
influence upon his countrymen; he stamped himself upon 
the times from the very law of his being. 

The same y^ar that the Biglow Papers were published as 
a collected volume, A Fable for Critics appeared. Follow- 
ing in a degree the example of Byron, in English Bards and 



X INTRODUCTION. 

Scotch Reviewers, yet without malevolence, lie laid bare the 
foibles in the character and writing of the men of the 
Athenian Age of New England. His criticism was not all 
tilting at vanities, nor was his vision obscured by the near- 
ness of his view. His analysis of Whittier, Bryant, Poe, 
Hawthorne, Emerson, and even of "that fellow Lowell" 
was early evidence of his insight and power as a literary 
critic. These judgments of half a century ago have stood 
Time's test and are substantially the opinions of to-day. 

This, too, was the year of The Vision of Sir Launfal 
(1848). Inspired by the beauty of the Arthurian Legends, 
stirred deeply by the great lesson to man, which he saw in 
and around the dim story, and possessed for months with 
the idea as the theme for a great narrative poem, Lowell, 
like the prophets of old, seemed suddenly wrapped in a 
frenzy. Shut up in his study for two days and nights, 
almost without food or rest, he shaped his thought; with 
little revision, as was his habit in composition, it was put 
forth to set the high- water mark of his poetic genius. 

It was fitting that when Longfellow resigned the Smith 
professorship, in 1856, Lowell, who had already shown the 
breadth of his scholarship, the acuteness of his critical 
faculties, and the completeness of his equipment, should 
succeed to the chair of Modern Languages in Harvard. 
Eor many years after this appointment, his surroundings 
were almost ideal : Elmwood was the beautiful home of his 
birth ; Cambridge was still the best center of literary cul- 
ture ; in and about Boston were many American men of 
Tetters ; the routine work of the college was not irksome, 
nor were his duties such as to impede his own studies or 
his activity through his writings in a cause to which he was 
devoted. It was during this period that much of his criti- 



INTRODUCTION. Xi 

cal prose was produced : Fireside Travels, in 1864 ; Among 
my Books, 1870 ; My Study Windows, 1871 ; Democracy and 
Other Addresses, 1886. 

From 1857 to 1861, as editor of the Atlantic Monthly, 
he was associated with Oliver Wendell Holmes ; in fact, 
Lowell was not willing to undertake the editorship without 
the agreement that the "Boston Poet" should be a con- 
tributor. The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, the literary 
success of the magazine, resulted from this association. Low- 
ell's own contributions were chiefly political, but his work as 
a writer was overshadowed by his devoted toil as an editor. 
From 1863 to 1877 he successfully conducted the North 
American Review. These years of editorship broadened his 
sympathies, enriched his character, made him widely known, 
gave him a deeper insight into the hearts of men, and made 
him a stronger national force. Much that made him the 
successful diplomat in Spain and England was without 
doubt due to the business training and political strength 
acquired while associated with the Atlantic and the North 
American Review. 

The second series of Biglow Papers was c(?llected and 
published in 1867. The feelings which stirred Lowell at 
the epoch of the war with Mexico were passionate convic- 
tions in the days of civil strife. That the Papers were the 
work of a self-confessed humorist detracted nothing from 
their strength ; their wit was powerful, their ridicule 
scorching. The poems were in everybody's mouth, and 
were rightly considered, in spite of their lighter vein, to be 
most potent forces in the stirring literature of the period. 
The war poems, with others, including the noble Com- 
memoration Ode, delivered at Harvard in 1865, were pub- 
lished in 1869, with the title Under the Willows. 



Xll INTBOBUCTION. 

During the Hayes administration, four foreign missions 
were offered to Lowell; lie accepted the appointment to 
Spain, and, in 1877, began his diplomatic life at the court 
of Alfonso XII. In 1880 he was transferred from Madrid 
to the Court of St. James. With much tact he effected the 
social conquest of the English people, becoming a great 
favorite, both as a man of culture and as a man of letters. 
By energy and devotion to his ministerial duties he won 
the admiration of his own countrymen and the respect 
of all Great Britain. He was never less of an American, 
through the temptations to truckle to old-world prejudice 
against our democratic ideals. His four years of service 
did much to establish in England the belief in the existence 
of the ideal American, — a man of all the social graces, 
coupled with scholarly culture and sterling character. 

After his return to his Cambridge home, the declining 
years of his life were given to the revision of his prose 
works. Many of the essays and addresses delivered in 
England were included in Democracy (1886). Political 
Essays was published in 1888 ; and, in the last year of his 
life, at the age of seventy-two, he ]3ut forth Latest Literary 
Essays, which was followed, in 1892, after his death, by 
Tlie Old English Drartiatists. 

"How enviable the record of a poet who is our most 
brilliant and learned critic, and who has given us our best 
native idyl, our best and most complete work in dialectic 
verse, and the noblest heroic ode that America has produced, 
— each and all ranking with the first of their kinds in Eng- 
lish literature of the modern time." — Stedman. 



SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 
PRELUDE TO PART FIRST. 

Over his keys the musing organist, 

Beginning doubtfully and far away, 
First lets his fingers wander as they list, 

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay : 
Then, as the touch of his loved instrument 5 

Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme, 
First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent 

Along the wavering vista of his dream. 

Not only around our infancy 

Doth heaven with all its splendors lie ; 10 

Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 

We Sinais climb and know it not. 

Over our manhood bend the skies ; 

Against our fallen and traitor lives 
The great winds utter prophecies : 15 

With our faint hearts the mountain strives ; 
Its arms outstretched, the druid wood 

Waits with its benedicite ; 
And to our age's drowsy blood 

Still shouts the inspiring sea. 20 

1 



yl SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us ; 

The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, 
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us, 

We bargain for the graves we lie in ; 
At the Devil's booth are all things sold, 25 

Each ounce of dross^ costs its ounce of gold ; 

For a cap and bells our lives we pay. 
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking : 

'Tis heaven alone that is given away, 
'Tis only God may be had for the asking ; 30 

No price is set on the lavish summer ; 
June may be had by the poorest comer. 

And what is so rare as a day in June ? 

Then, if ever, come perfect days ; 
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, 35 

And over it softly her warm ear lays : 
Whether we look, or whether we listen, 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; 
Every clod feels a stir of might. 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 40 

And, groping blindly above it for light, 

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers ; 
The flush of life may well be seen 

Thrilling back over hills and valleys; 
The cowslip startles in meadows green, 45 

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice. 
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean 

To be some happy creature's palace ; 
The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 50 

And lets his illumined being o'errun 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 3 

With the deluge of summer it receives ; 
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings ; 
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — 55 
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best ? 

Now is the high-tide of the year. 

And whatever of life hath ebbed away 
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, 

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay ; 60 

Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it. 
We are happy now because God wills it ; 
No matter how barren the past may have been, 
'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green ; 
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well 65 

How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell ; 
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing 
That skies are clear and grass is growing ; 
The breeze comes whispering in our ear, 
That dandelions are blossoming near, 70 

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing. 
That the river is bluer than the sky. 
That the robin is plastering his house hard by ; 
And if the breeze kept the good news back, 
For other couriers we should not lack ; 75 

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing. — 
And hark ! how clear bold chanticleer. 
Warmed with the new wine of the year. 

Tells all in his lusty crowing ! 

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ; 80 

Everything is happy now, 



SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

Everything is upward striving ; 
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true 
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 

'Tis the natural way of living : 85 

Who knows whither the clouds have fled ? 

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake ; 
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, 

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache ; 
The soul partakes of the season's youth, 90 

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe 
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, 

Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. ^ 
What wonder if Sir Launfal now 
Eeniembered the keeping of his vow ? 95 



PART FIRST. 



a My golden spurs now bring to me, 

And bring to me my richest mail, 
For to-morrow I go over land and sea 

In search of the Holy Grail ; 
Shall never a bed for me be spread, lOO 

Nor shall a pillow be under my head. 
Till I begin my vow to keep ; 
Here on the rushes will I sleep. 
And perchance there may come a vision true 
Ere day create the world anew." 105 

Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim. 

Slumber fell like a cloud on him. 
And into his soul the vision flew. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 6 

II. 
The crows flapped over by twos and threes, 
111 the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees, no 

The little birds sang as if it were 

The one day of summer in all the year, 
And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees : 
The castle alone in the landscape lay 
Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray : lis 

'Twas the proudest hall in the North Countree, 
And never its gates might opened be, 
Save to lord or lady of high degree ; 
Summer besieged it on every side. 
But the churlish stone her assaults defied ; 120 

She could not scale the chilly wall, 
Though around it for leagues her pavilions tall 
Stretched left and right. 
Over the hills and out of sight ; 

Green and broad was every tent, 125 

And out of each a murmur went 
Till the breeze fell off at night. 

III. 

The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang. 
And through the dark arch a charger sprang, 
Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, 130 

In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright 
It seemed the dark castle had gathered all 
Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall 

In his siege of three hundred summers long. 
And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf, 135 

Had cast them forth : so, young and strong, 
And lightsome as a locust-leaf. 



SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

Sir Launfal flashed forth in his unscarred mail, 
To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. 

IV. 

It was morning on hill and stream and tree, 140 

And morning in the young knight's heart ; 

Only the castle moodily 

Eebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free, 
And gloomed by itself apart ; 

The season brimmed all other things up 145 

Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup. 

V. 

As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate, 

He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by the same, 
Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate ; 

And a loathing over Sir Launfal came ; 150 

The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill. 

The flesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink and crawl, 
And midway its leap his heart stood still 

Like a frozen waterfall ; 
For this man, so foul and bent of stature, 155 

Rasped harshly against his dainty nature. 
And seemed the one blot on the summer morn — 
So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. 

VI. 

The leper raised not the gold from the dust : 

" Better to me the poor man's crust, 160 

Better the blessing of the poor. 

Though I turn me empty from his door ; 

That is no true alms which the hand can hold j 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 7 

He gives nothing but worthless gold 

Who gives from a sense of duty ; 165 

But he who gives but a slender mite, 
And gives to that which is out of sight, 

That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty 
Which runs through all and doth all unite, — 
The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, 170 

The heart outstretches its eager palms. 
For a god goes with it and makes it store 
To the soul that was starving in darkness before." 



PRELUDE TO PART SECOND. 

Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak. 
From the snow five thousand summers old ; 175 

On open wold and hill-top bleak 
It had gathered all the cold. 

And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek ; 

It carried a shiver everywhere 

From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare ; 180 

The little brook heard it and built a roof 

'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof ; 

All night by the white stars' frosty gleams 

He groined his arches and matched his beams ; 

Slender and clear were his crystal spars 185 

As the lashes of light that trim the stars ; 

He sculptured every summer delight 

In his halls and chambers out of sight ; 

Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt 

Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, 190 

Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees 



SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL, 

Bending to counterfeit a breeze ; 

Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew 

But silvery mosses that downward grew ; 

Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief 195 

With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf ; 

Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear 

For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here 
He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops 
And hung them thickly with diamond-drops, 200 

That crystalled the beams of moon and sun, 
And made a star of every one : 
No mortal builder's most rare device 
Could match this winter-palace of ice ; 
'Twas as if every image that mirrored lay 205 

In his depths serene through the summer day. 
Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky. 
Lest the happy model should be lost, 
Had been mimicked in fairy masonry 

By the elfin builders of the frost. 210 

■Within the hall are song and laughter, 

The cheeks of Christmas grow red and jolly, 
And sprouting is every corbel and rafter 

With lightsome green of ivy and holly ; 
Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide 215 

Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide ; 
The broad flame-pennons droop and flap 

And belly and tug as a flag in the wind ; 
Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, 

Hunted to death in its galleries blind ; 220 

And swift little troops of silent sparks, 

Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 9 

Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks 

Like herds of startled deer. 
But the wind without was eager and sharp, 225 

Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, 
And rattles and wrings 
The icy strings, 
Singing, in dreary monotone, 

A Christmas carol of its own, 230 

Whose burden still, as he might guess, 
Was — " Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless ! " 
The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch 
As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch. 
And he sat in the gateway and saw all night 235 

The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, 
Through the window-slits of the castle old. 
Build out its piers of ruddy light 
Against the drift of the cold. 



PART SECOND 



There was never a leaf on bush or tree, 240 

The bare boughs rattled shudderingly ; 
The river was dumb and could not speak. 

For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun, 
A single crow on the tree-top bleak 

From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun ; 245 
Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold, 
As if her veins were sapless and old. 
And she rose up decrepitly 
For a last dim look at earth and sea. 



10 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

II. 

Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate, 250 

For another heir in his earldom sate ; 

An old, bent man, worn out and frail. 

He came back from seeking the Holy Grail ; 

Little he recked of his earldom's loss, 

No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, 255 

But deep in his soul the sign he wore, 

The badge of the suffering and the poor. 

III. 

Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare 

Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air, 

For it was just at the Christmas time ; 260 

So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime. 

And sought for a shelter from cold and snow 

In the light and warmth of long-ago ; 

He sees the snake-like caravan crawl 

O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, 265 

Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one. 

He can count the camels in the sun. 

As over the red-hot sands they pass 

To where, in its slender necklace of grass. 

The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, 270 

And with its own self like an infant played. 

And waved its signal of palms. 

IV. 

"For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms;" — 

The happy camels may reach the spring. 

But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing, 275 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 11 

The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone, 
That cowers beside him, a thing as lone 
And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas 
In the desolate horror of his disease. 



And Sir Launfal said, — "I behold in thee 280 

An image of Him who died on the tree ; 

Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, — 

Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns, — 

And to thy life were not denied 

The wounds in the hands and feet and side : 285 

Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me ; 

Behold, through him, I give to Thee ! " 



VI. 

Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes 

And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he 
Remembered in what a haughtier guise 290 

He had flung an alms to leprosie, 
When he girt his young life up in gilded mail 
And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. 
The heart within him was ashes and dust ; 
He parted in twain his single crust, 295 

He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink, 
And gave the leper to eat and drink : 
'Twas a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, 

'Twas water out of a wooden bowl, — 
Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, 300 

And 'twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. 



12 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

VII. 
As Sir Lannfal mused with a downcast face, 
A light shone round about the place ; 
The leper no longer crouched at his side, 
But stood before him glorified, 305 

But shining and tall and fair and straight 
As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate, — 
Himself the Gate whereby men can 
Enter the temple of God in Man. 

VIII. 

His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, 310 
And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine. 
That mingle their softness and quiet in one 
With the shaggy unrest they float down upon ; 
And the voice that was calmer than silence said, 
"Lo it is I, be not afraid ! 315 

In many climes, without avail. 
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail ; 
Behold, it is here, — this cup which thou 
Didst fill at the streamlet for Me but now ; 
This crust is My body broken for thee, 320 

This water His blood that died on the tree ; 
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed. 
In whatso we share with another's need : 
( Not what we give, but what we share, — / 
Eor the gift without the giver is bare ; 325 

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, — 
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me." 

IX. 

Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound : — 
*' The Grail in my castle here is found ! 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 13 

Hang my idle armor up on the wall, 330 

Let it be the spider's banqnet-hall ; 
He must be fenced with stronger mail 
Who would seek and find the Holy Grail. 

X. 

The castle gate stands open now, 

And the wanderer is welcome to the hall 335 

As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough ; 

No longer scowl the turrets tall. 

The Summer's long siege at last is o'er ; 

When the first poor outcast went in at the door, 

She entered with him in disguise, 340 

And mastered the fortress by surprise ; 

There is no spot she loves so well on ground. 

She lingers and smiles there the whole year round; 

The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land 

Has hall and bower at his command ; 345 

And there's no poor man in the North Countree 

But is lord of the earldom as much as he. 



14 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 



SUMMEE STOEM. 

Untremulous in the river clear, 
Toward the sky's image, hangs the imaged bridge ; 

So still the air that I can hear 
The slender clarion of the unseen midge ; 

Out of the stillness, with a gathering creep, 5 

Like rising wind in leaves, which now decreases, 
Now lulls, now swells, and all the while increases. 

The huddling trample of a drove of sheep 
Tilts the loose planks, and then as gradually ceases 

In dust on the other side ; life's emblem deep, lo 

A confused noise between two silences. 
Finding at last in dust precarious peace. 
On the wide marsh the purple-blossomed grasses 

Soak up the sunshine ; sleeps the brimming tide, 
Save when the wedge-shaped wake in silence passes 15 

Of some slow water rat, whose sinuous glide 

Wavers the long green sedge's shade from side to side ; 
But up the west, like a rock-shivered surge. 

Climbs a great cloud edged with sun-whitened spray ; 
Huge whirls of foam boil toppling o'er its verge, 20 

And falling still it seems, and yet it climbs alway. 

Suddenly all the sky is hid 
As with the shutting of a lid. 
One by one great drops are falling 

Doubtful and slow, 25 

Down the pane they are crookedly crawling, 

And the wind breathes low ; 
Slowly the circles widen on the river. 



SUMMER STORM. 16 

"Widen and mingle, one and all ; 
Here and there the slenderer flowers shiver, 30 

Struck by an icy raindrop's fall. 

Now on the hills I hear the thunder mutter. 

The wind is gathering in the west ; 
The upturned leaves first whiten and flutter. 

Then droop to a fitful rest ; 35 

Up from the stream with sluggish flap 

Struggles the gull and floats away ; 
Nearer and nearer rolls the thunder-clap, — 

We shall not see the sun go down to-day ; 
Now leaps the wind on the sleepy marsh 40 

And tramples the grass with terrified feet, 
The startled river turns leaden and harsh. 

You can hear the quick heart of the tempest beat. 

Look ! look ! that vivid flash ! 
And instantly follows the rattling thunder, 45 

As if some cloud-crag, split asunder, 

Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash. 
On the Earth, which crouches in silence under ; 

And now a solid gray wall of rain 
Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile ; 50 

For a breath's space I see the blue wood again. 
And ere the next heart-beat, the wind-hurled pile. 
That seemed but now a league aloof, 
Bursts crackling o'er the sun-parched roof ; 
Against the windows the storm comes dashing, 55 

Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing. 
The blue lightning flashes, 
The rapid hail clashes, 



16 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

The white waves are tumbling, 

And, in one bafled roar, 60 

Like the toothless sea mumbling 

A rock-bristled shore, 
The thunder is rumbling 
And crashing and crumbling, — 

Will silence return nevermore ? 65 

Hush ! Still as death, 
The tempest holds his breath 
As from a sudden will ; 
The rain stops short, but from the eaves 
You see it drop, and hear it from the leaves, 70 
All is so bodingly still ; 

Again, now, now, again. 
Plashes the rain in heavy gouts, 
The crinkled lightning 
Seems ever brightening, 75 

And loud and long 
Again the thunder shouts 
His battle-song, — 
One quivering flash. 

One wildering crash, 80 

Followed by silence dead and dull, 
As if the cloud let go. 
Leapt bodily below 
To whelm the earth in one mad overthrow. 

And then a total lull. 85 

Gone, gone, so soon ! 
No more my half-crazed fancy there 
Can shape a giant in the air, 



ALLEGRA. 17 

No more I see his streaming hair, 
The writhing portent of his form ; 90 

The pale and quiet moon 
Makes her calm forehead bare, 
And the last fragments of the storm, 
Like shattered rigging from a fight at sea, 
Silent and few, are drifting over me. 95 



ALLEGRA. 

I WOULD more natures were like thine. 

That never casts a glance before, — 
Thou Hebe, who thy heart's bright wine 

So lavishly to all dost pour. 
That we who drink forget to pine, 6 

And can but dream of bliss in store. 

Thou canst not see a shade in life ; 

With sunward instinct thou dost rise. 
And, leaving clouds below at strife, 

Gazest undazzled at the skies, 10 

With all their blazing splendors rife, 

A songful lark with eagle's eyes. 

Thou wast some foundling whom the Hours 
Nursed, laughing, with the milk of Mirth; 

Some influence more gay than ours 15 

Hath ruled thy nature from its birth, 

As if thy natal stars were flowers 

That shook their seeds round thee on earth. 



18 SELECTIONS FBOM LOWELL. 

And thou, to lull thine infant rest, 

Wast cradled like an Indian child ; 20 

All pleasant winds from south and west 

With lullabies thine ears beguiled, 
Eocking thee in thine oriole's nest, 

Till Nature looked at thee and smiled. 

Thine every fancy seems to borrow 25 

A sunlight from thy childish years, 

Making a golden cloud of sorrow, 
A hope-lit rainbow out of tears, — 

Thy heart is certain of to-morrow. 

Though 'yond to-day it never peers. 30 

I would more natures were like thine, 

So innocently wild and free. 
Whose sad thoughts, even, leap and shine, 

Like sunny wavelets in the sea. 
Making us mindless of the brine, 35 

In gazing on the brilliancy. 



THE KOSE: A BALLAD. 



In his tower sat the poet 

Gazing on the roaring sea, 
" Take this rose," he sighed, " and throw it 

Where there's none that loveth me. 
On the rock the billow bursteth 

And sinks back into the seas, 



THE ROSE: A BALLAD. 19 

But in vain my spirit thirsteth 

So to burst and be at ease. 
Take, sea ! the tender blossom 

That hath lain against my breast ; 10 

On thy black and angry bosom 

It will find a surer rest. 
Life is vain and love is hollow, 

Ugly death stands there behind, 
Hate and scorn and hunger follow 15 

Him that toileth for his kind." 
Forth into the night he hurled it. 

And with bitter smile did mark 
How the surly tempest whirled it 

Swift into the hungry dark. 20 

Foam and spray drive back to leeward, 

And the gale, with dreary moan. 
Drifts the helpless blossom seaward, 

Through the breakers all alone. 

II. 

Stands a maiden, on the morrow, 25 

Musing by the wave-beat strand, 
Half in hope and half in sorrow, 

Tracing words upon the sand ; 
" Shall I ever then behold him 

Who hath»been my life so long, — 30 

Ever to this sick heart fold him, — 

Be the spirit of his song ? 
Touch not, sea, the blessed letters 

I have traced upon thy shore, 
Spare his name whose spirit fetters 35 

Mine with love forevermore ! " 



20 SELECTIONS FBOM LOWELL. 

Swells the tide and overflows it 

But, with omen pure and meet, 
Brings a little rose and throws it 

Humbly at the maiden's feet. 40 

Full of bliss she takes the token, 

And, upon her snowy breast, 
Soothes the ruffled petals broken 

With the ocean's fierce unrest. 
" Love is thine, heart ! and surely 45 

Peace shall also be thine own, 
For the heart that trusteth purely 

Never long can pine alone.'' 

III. 

In his tower sits the poet. 

Blisses new and strange to him 50 

Fill his heart and overflow it 

With a wonder sweet and dim. 
Up the beach the ocean slideth 

With a whisper of delight, 
And the moon in silence glide th 55 

Through the peaceful blue of night. 
Eippling o'er the poet's shoulder 

Flows a maiden's golden hair. 
Maiden lips, with love grown bolder. 

Kiss his moon-lit forehead bare. 60 

" Life is joy and love is power. 

Death all fetters doth unbind. 
Strength and wisdom only flower 

When we toil for all our kind. 
Hope is truth, — the future giveth 65 

More than present takes away, 



BHCECUS. 21 

And the soul forever liveth 

Nearer God from day to day." 
Not a word the maiden uttered, 

Fullest hearts are slow to speak, 70 

But a withered rose-leaf fluttered 

Down upon the poet's cheek. 



RHCECUS. 

God sends his teachers unto every age, 
To every clime, and every race of men, 
With revelations fitted to their growth 
And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of Truth 
Into the selfish rule of one sole race : 5 

Therefore each form of worship that hath swayed 
The life of man, and given it to grasp 
The master key of knowledge, reverence, 
Infolds some germs of goodness and of right ; 
Else never had the eager soul, which loathes 10 

The slothful down of pampered ignorance, 
Found in it even a moment's fitful rest. 

There is an instinct in the human heart 
Which makes that all the fables it hath coined, 
To justify the reign of its belief 15 

And strengthen it by beauty's right divine, 
Veil in their inner cells a mystic gift. 
Which, like the hazel twig, in faithful hands. 
Points surely to the hidden springs of truth. 
For, as in nature naught is made in vain, 20 

But all things have within their hull of use 



22 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

A wisdom and a meaning which may speak 

Of spiritual secrets to the ear 

Of spirit ; so, in whatsoe'er the heart 

Hath fashioned for a solace to itself, 25 

To make its inspirations snit its creed, 

And from the niggard hands of falsehood wring 

Its needful food of truth, there ever is 

A sympathy with Nature, which reveals, 

Not less than her own works, pure gleams of light 30 

And earnest parables of inward lore. 

Hear now this fairy legend of old Greece, 

As full of freedom, youth, and beauty still 

As the immortal freshness of that grace 

Carved for all ages on some Attic frieze. 35 

A youth named Khoecus, wandering in the wood, 
Saw an old oak just trembling to its fall, 
And, feeling pity of so fair a tree. 
He propped its gray trunk with admiring care, 
And with a thoughtless footstep loitered on. 40 

But, as he turned, he heard a voice behind 
That murmured " Rhoecus ! '' 'Twas as if the leaves, 
Stirred by a passing breath, had murmured it. 
And while he paused bewildered, yet again 
It murmured " Ehcecus ! " softer than a breeze. 45 

He started and beheld with dizzy eyes 
What seemed the substance of a happy dream 
Stand there before him, spreading a warm glow 
Within the green glooms of the shadowy oak. 
It seemed a woman's shape, yet all too fair 50 

To be a woman, and with eyes too meek 
For any that were wont to mate with gods. 



hhcecus. 2B 

All naked like a goddess stood she there, 

And like a goddess all too beautiful 

To feel the guilt-born earthliness of shame. 55 

"Rhoecus, I am the Dryad of this tree," 

Thus she began dropping her low-toned words 

Serene, and full, and clear, as drops of dew, 

"And with it I am doomed to live and die ; 

The rain and sunshine are my caterers, 60 

Nor have I other bliss than simple life ; 

Now ask me what thou wilt, that I can give. 

And with a thankful joy it shall be thine." 

Then Rhoecus, with a flutter at the heart, 
Yet, by the prompting of such beauty, bold, 65 

Answered : " What is there that can satisfy 
The endless craving of the soul but love ? 
Give me thy love, or but the hope of that 
Which must be evermore my nature's goal." 
After a little pause she said again, 70 

But with a glimpse of sadness in her tone, 
" I give it, Rhoecus, though a perilous gift ; 
An hour before the sunset meet me here." 
And straightway there was nothing he could see 
But the green glooms beneath the shadowy oak, 75 

And not a sound came to his straining ears 
But the low trickling rustle of the leaves 
And far away upon an emerald slope 
The falter of an idle shepherd's pipe. 

Now, in those days of simpleness and faith, 80 

Men did not think that happy things were dreams 
Because they overstepped the narrow bourn 



24 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

Of likelihood, but reverently deemed 

Nothing too wondrous or too beautiful 

To be the guerdon of a daring heart. 85 

So Ehoecus made no doubt that he was blest, 

And all along unto the city's gate 

Earth seemed to spring beneath him as he walked, 

The clear, broad sky looked bluer than its wont. 

And he could scarce believe he had not wings, 90 

Such sunshine seemed to glitter through his veins 

Instead of blood, so light he felt and strange. 

Young Ehoecus had a faithful heart enough, 
But one that in the present dwelt too much. 
And, taking with blithe welcome whatsoe'er 95 

Chance gave of joy, was wholly bound in that. 
Like the contented peasant of a vale, 
Deemed it the world, and never looked beyond. 
So, haply meeting in the afternoon 
Some comrades who were playing at the dice, lOO 

He joined them, and forgot all else beside. 

The dice were rattling at the merriest. 
And Ehoecus, who had met but sorry luck. 
Just laughed in triumph at a happy throw, 104 

When through the room there hummed a yellow bee 
That buzzed about his ear with down-dropped legs 
As if to light. And Ehoecus laughed and said, 
Peeling how red and flushed he was with loss, 
" By Venus ! does he take me for a rose ? " 
And brushed him off with rough, impatient hand. iio 
But still the bee came back, and thrice again 
Ehoecus did beat him off with growing wrath. 



BHCECUS. 25 

Then through the window flew the wounded bee, 

And Rhoecus tracking him with angry eyes, 

Saw a sharp mountain-peak of Thessaly 115 

Against the red disk of the setting sun, — 

And instantly the blood sank from his heart, 

As if its very walls had caved away. 

Without a word he turned, and, rushing forth, 

Ran madly through the city and the gate, 120 

And o'er the plain, which now the wood's long shade. 

By the low sun thrown forward broad and dim, 

Darkened well-nigh unto the city's wall. 

Quite spent and out of breath he reached the tree. 
And, listening fearfully, he heard once more 125 

The low voice murmur, " Rhoecus ! " close at hand: 
Whereat he looked around him, but could see 
Naught but the deepening glooms beneath the oak. 
Then sighed the voice, "0 Rhoecus ! nevermore 
Shalt thou behold me or by day or night, 130 

Me, who would fain have blessed thee with a love 
More ripe and bounteous than ever yet 
Filled up with nectar any mortal heart ; 
But thou didst scorn my humble messenger, 
And sent'st him back to me with bruised wings. 135 
We spirits only show to gentle eyes, 
We ever ask an undivided love. 
And he who scorns the least of Nature's works 
Is thenceforth exiled and shut out from all. 
Farewell ! For thou canst never see me more." 140 

Then Rhoecus beat his breast, and groaned aloud, 
And cried, " Be pitiful ! forgive me yet 



26 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

This once, and I shall never need it more ! " 

" Alas ! " the voice returned, " 'tis thou art blind, 

Not I unmerciful ; I can forgive, 145 

But have no skill to heal thy spirit's eyes ; 

Only the soul hath power o'er itself." 

With that again there murmured " Nevermore ! " 

And Rhoecus after heard no other sound. 

Except the rattling of the oak's crisp leaves, 150 

Like the long surf upon a distant shore, 

Eaking the sea-worn pebbles up and down. 

The night had gathered round him ; o'er the plain 

The city sparkled with its thousand lights. 

And sounds of revel fell upon his ear 155 

Harshly and like a curse ; above the sky, 

With all its bright sublimity of stars. 

Deepened, and on his forehead smote the breeze; 

Beauty was all around him and delight. 

But from that eve he was alone on earth. 160 



TO A PINE TREE. 

Far up on Katahdin thou towerest. 

Purple-blue with the distance and vast ; 

Like a cloud o'er the lowlands thou lowerest, 
That hangs poised on a lull in the blast. 
To its fall leaning awful. 

In the storm, like a prophet o'ermaddened. 

Thou singest and tossest thy branches ; 
Thy heart with the terror is gladdened, 



TO A PINE TREE. 27 

Thou forebodest the dread avalanches, 

When whole mountains swoop vale ward. 10 

In the calm thou o'erstretchest the valleys 
With thine arms, as if blessings imploring, 

Like an old king led forth from his palace, 
When his people to battle are pouring 

From the city beneath him. 15 

To the lumberer asleep 'neath thy glooming 
Thou dost sing of wild billows in motion. 

Till he longs to be swung mid their booming 
In the tents of the Arabs of ocean. 

Whose iinned isles are their cattle. 20 

For the gale snatches thee for his lyre. 
With mad hand crashing melody frantic, 

While he pours forth his mighty desire 
To leap down on the eager Atlantic, 

Whose arms stretch to his playmate. 25 

The wild storm makes his lair in thy branches. 
Preying thence on the continent under ; 

Like a lion, crouched close on his haunches, 
There awaiteth his leap the fierce thunder. 

Growling low with impatience. 30 

Spite of winter, thou keep'st thy green glory, 

Lusty father of Titans past number ! 
The snowflakes alone make thee hoary. 

Nestling close to thy branches in slumber, 

And thee mantling with silence. 35 



28 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

Thou alone knowest the splendor of winter 
Mid thy snow-silvered, hushed precipices, 

Hearing crags of green ice groan and splinter, 
And then plunge down the muffled abysses 

In the quiet of midnight. 40 



Thou alone knowest the glory of summer. 
Gazing down on thy broad seas of forest, 

On thy subjects that send a proud murmur 
Up to thee, to their sachem, who towerest 

From thy bleak throne to heaven. 45 



TO THE PAST. 

Wondrous and awful are thy silent halls, 

kingdom of the past ! 
There lie the bygone ages in their palls,. 
Guarded by shadows vast ; 
There all is hushed and breathless, 5 

Save when some image of old error falls 
Earth worshipped once as deathless. 

There sits drear Egypt, mid beleaguering sands, 

Half woman and half beast. 
The burnt-out torch within her mouldering hands 10 
That once lit all the East ; 
A dotard bleared and hoary, 
There Asser crouches o'er the blackened brands 
Of Asia's long-quenched glory. 



TO THE PAST. 29 

Still as a city buried 'neath the sea, 16 

Thy courts and temples stand ; 
Idle as forms on wind-waved tapestry 
Of saints and heroes grand, 
Thy phantasms grope and shiver, 
Or watch the loose shores crumbling silently 20 

Into Time's gnawing river. 

Titanic shapes with faces blank and dun, 

Of their old godhead lorn, 
Gaze on the embers of the sunken sun, 

Which they misdeem for morn ; 25 

And yet the eternal sorrow 
In their unmonarched eyes says day is done 
Without the hope of morrow. 

realm of silence and of swart eclipse. 

The shapes that haunt thy gloom 30 

Make signs to us and move their withered lips 
Across the gulf of doom ; 
Yet all their sound and motion 
Bring no more freight to us than wraiths of ships 
On the mirage's ocean. 35 

And if sometimes a moaning wandereth 

From out thy desolate halls, 
If some grim shadow of thy living death 
Across our sunshine falls 
And scares the world to error, 40 

The eternal life sends forth melodious breath 
To chase the misty terror. 



30 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

Thy miglity clamors, wars, and world-noised deeds 

Are silent now in dust, 
Gone like a tremble of the huddling reeds 45 

Beneath some sudden gust; 
Thy forms and creeds have vanished, 
Tossed out to wither like unsightly weeds 
From the world's garden banished. 

Whatever of true life there was in thee 50 

Leaps in our age's veins ; 
Wield still thy bent and wrinkled empery, 
And shake thine idle chains ; — 
To thee thy dross is clinging. 
For us thy martyrs die, thy prophets see, 55 

Thy poets still are singing. 

Here, mid the bleak waves of our strife and care, 

Float the green Fortunate Isles 
Where all thy hero-spirits dwell, and share 

Our martyrdoms and toils ; 60 

The present moves attended 
With all of brave and excellent and fair 
That made the old time splendid. 



THE OAK. 31 



THE OAK. 

What gnarled stretch, what depth of shade, is his ! 

There needs no crown to mark the forest's king; 
How in his leaves outshines full summer's bliss ! 

Sun, storm, rain, dew, to him their tribute bring. 
Which he with such benignant royalty 5 

Accepts, as overpayeth what is lent ; 
All nature seems his vassal proud to be, 

And cunning only for his ornament. 

How towers he, too, amid the billowed snows, 

An unquelled exile from the summer's throne, 10 

Whose plain, uncinctured front more kingly shows, 

Now that the obscuring courtier leaves are flown. 
His boughs make music of the winter air, 

Jewelled with sleet, like some cathedral front 
Where clinging snow-flakes with quaint art repair 15 

The dints and furrows of time's envious brunt. 

How doth his patient strength the rude March wind 

Persuade to seem glad breaths of summer breeze, 
And win the soil that fain would be unkind, 

To swell his revenues with proud increase! 20 

He is the gem ; and all the landscape wide 

(So doth his grandeur isolate the sense) 
Seems but the setting, worthless all beside, 

An empty socket, were he fallen thence. 

So, from oft converse with life's wintry gales, 25 

Should man learn how to clasp with tougher roots 



32 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

The inspiring earth ; how otherwise avails 
The leaf-creating sap that sunward shoots ? 

So every year that falls with noiseless flake 

Should fill old scars up on the storm ward side, 30 

And make hoar age revered for age's sake, 
Not for traditions of youth's leafy pride. 

So, from the pinched soil of a churlish fate. 

True hearts compel the sap of sturdier growth. 
So between earth and heaven stand simply great, 35 

That these shall seem but their attendants both ; 
For nature's forces with obedient zeal 

Wait on the rooted faith and oaken will ; 
As quickly the pretender's cheat they feel, 

And turn mad Pucks to flout and mock him still. 40 

Lord, all thy works are lessons ; each contains 

Some emblem of man's all-containing soul ; 
Shall he make fruitless all thy glorious pains. 

Delving within thy grace an eyeless mole ? 
Make me the least of thy Dodona-grove, 45 

Cause me some message of thy truth to bring, 
Speak but a word through me, nor let thy love 

Among my boughs disdain to perch and sing. 



THE BIRCH TREE. 38 



THE BIRCH TREE. 



Rippling through thy branches goes the sunshine, 

Among thy leaves that palpitate forever ; 

Ovid in thee a pining Nymph had prisoned, 

The soul once of some tremulous inland river, 

Quivering to tell her woe, but, ah ! dumb, dumb forever ! 5 

While all the forest, witched with slumberous moonshine. 

Holds up its leaves in happy, happy silence, 

Waiting the dew, with breath and pulse suspended, 

I hear afar thy whispering, gleamy islands, 

And track thee wakeful still amid the wide-hung silence. 10 

Upon the brink of some wood-nestled lakelet. 
Thy foliage, like the tresses of a Dryad, 
Dripping about thy slim white stem, whose shadow 
Slopes quivering down the water's dusky quiet, 
Thou shrink'st as on her bath's edge would some startled 
• Dryad. 15 

Thou art the go-between of rustic lovers ; 

Thy white bark has their secrets in its keeping ; 

Reuben writes here the happy name of Patience, 

And thy lithe boughs hang murmuring and weeping 

Above her, as she steals the mystery from thy keeping. 20 

Thou art to me like my beloved maiden, 

So frankly coy, so full of trembly confidences ; 

Thy shadow scarce seems shade, thy pattering leaflets 

Sprinkle their gathered sunshine o'er my senses, 

And Nature gives me all her summer confidences. 25 



34 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

Whether my heart with hope or sorrow tremble, 

Thou sympathizest still ; wild and unquiet, 

I fling me down ; thy ripple, like a river, 

Flows valley ward, where calmness is, and by it 

My heart is floated down into the land of quiet. 30 



TO THE DANDELIOK 

Deak common flower, that grow'st beside the way. 
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, 

First pledge of blithesome May, 
Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold, 

High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they 
An Eldorado in the grass have found. 
Which not the rich earth's ample round 

May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me 

Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. 



Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow lo 

Through the primeval hush of Indian seas. 
Nor wrinkled the lean brow 

Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease ; 
'Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters now 

To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, 15 

Though most hearts never understand 
To take it at God's value, but pass by 
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. 



TO THE DANDELION, 35 

Thou art my tropics and mine Italy ; 

To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime ; 20 

The eyes thou givest me 

Are in the heart, and heed not space or time : 
Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee 

Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment 

In the white lily's breezy tent, 25 

His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first 
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. 

Then think I of deep shadows on the grass, 
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, 

Where, as the breezes pass, 30 

The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, 

Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass. 
Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue 
That from the distance sparkle through 

Some woodland gap, and of a sky above, 35 

Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. 

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee ; 

The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, 
Who, from the dark old tree 

Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, 40 

And I, secure in childish piety, 

Listened as if I heard an angel sing 

With news from heaven, which he could bring 
Fresh every day to my untainted ears 
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. 45 

How like a prodigal doth nature seem, 
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art j 



36 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

Thou teachest me to deem 

More sacredly of every human heart, 
Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam 50 

Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show, 

Did we but pay the love we owe, 
And with a child's undoubting wisdom look 
On all these living pages of God's book. 



ON A PORTEAIT OF DANTE BY GIOTTO. 

Can this be thou who, lean and pale. 

With such immitigable eye 
Didst look upon those writhing souls in bale, 

And note each vengeance, and pass by 
Unmoved, save when thy heart by chance 5 

Cast backward one forbidden glance. 

And saw Francesca, with child's glee. 

Subdue and mount thy wild-horse knee. 
And with proud hands control its fiery prance ? 

With half-drooped lids, and smooth, round brow, lO 

And eye remote, that inly sees 
Fair Beatrice's spirit wandering now 

In some sea-lulled Hesperides, 
Thou mo vest through the jarring street. 
Secluded from the noise of feet 15 

By her gift-blossom in thy hand, 

Thy branch of palm from Holy Land ; — 
No trace is here of ruin's fiery sleet. 



ON A PORTRAIT OF DANTE BY GIOTTO. 37 

Yet there is something round thy lips 

That prophesies the coming doom, 20 

The soft, gray herald-shadow before the eclipse 

Notches the perfect disk with gloom ; 
A something that would banish thee, 
And thine untamed pursuer be, 

From men and their unworthy fates, 25 

Though Florence had not shut her gates. 
And Grief had loosed her clutch and let thee free. 

Ah ! he who follows fearlessly 

The beckonings of a poet-heart 
Shall wander, and without the world's decree, 30 

A banished man in field and mart ; 
Harder than Florence' walls the bar 
Which with deaf sternness holds him far 

From home and friends, till death's release, 

And makes his only prayer for peace, 35 

Like thine, scarred veteran of a lifelong war ! 



38 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

A FABLE FOE CEITICS. 

EMERSON. 

" There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one. 
Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on, 
Whose prose is grand verse, while his verse, the Lord knows, 

Is some of it pr No, 'tis not even prose ; 

I'm speaking of metres ; some poems have welled 5 

From those rare depths of soul that have ne'er been excelled ; 
They're not epics, but that doesn't matter a pin, 
In creating, the only hard thing 's to begin ; 
A grass-blade 's no easier to make than an oak ; 
If you've once found the way, you've achieved the grand 
stroke ; 10 

In the worst of his poems are mines of rich matter, 
But thrown in a heap with a crush and a clatter ; 
Now it is not one thing nor another alone 
Makes a poem, but rather the general tone, 
The something pervading, uniting the whole, 15 

The before unconceived, unconceivable soul. 
So that just in removing this trifle or that, you 
Take away, as it were, a chief limb of the statue ; 
Boots, wood, bark, and leaves singly perfect may be. 
But, clapt hodge-podge together, they don't make a tree. 20 

" But, to come back to Emerson (whom, by the way, 
I believe we left waiting), — his is, we may say, 
A Greek head on right Yankee shoulders, whose range 
Has Olympus for one pole, for t'other the Exchange ; 
He seems to my thinking (although I'm afraid 25 

The comparison must, long ere this, have been made), 
A Plotinus-Montaigne, where the Egyptian's gold mist 



A FABLE FOR CBITlCS, 39 

And the Gascon's shrewd wit cheek-by-jowl coexist; 

All admire, yet scarcely six converts he's got 

To I don't (nor they either) exactly know what ; 30 

For though he builds glorious temples, 'tis odd 

He leaves never a doorway to get in a god. 

'Tis refreshing to old-fashioned people like me 

To meet such a primitive Pagan as he, 

In whose mind all creation is duly respected 35 

As parts of himself — just a little projected; 

And who's willing to worship the stars and the sun, 

A convert to — nothing but Emerson. 

So perfect a balance there is in his head. 

That he talks of things sometimes as if they were dead; 40 

Life, nature, love, God, and affairs of that sort, 

He looks at as merely ideas ; in short. 

As if they were fossils stuck round in a cabinet. 

Of such vast extent that our earth's a mere dab in it ; 

Composed just as he is inclined to conjecture her, 45 

Namely, one part pure earth, ninety-nine parts pure lecturer ; 

You are filled with delight at his clear demonstration, 

Each figure, word, gesture, just fits the occasion. 

With the quiet precision of science he'll sort 'em, 

But you can't help suspecting the whole a post mortem. 50 

" There are persons, mole-blind to the soul's make and style. 
Who insist on a likeness 'twixt him and Carlyle ; 
To compare him with Plato would be vastly fairer, 
Carlyle's the more burly, but E. is the rarer ; 
He sees fewer objects, but clearlier, trulier, 55 

If C.'s as original, E.'s more peculiar; 
That he's more of a man you might say of the one, 
Of the other he's more of an Emerson ; 



40 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

C.'s the Titan, as shaggy of mind as of limb, — 

E. the clear-eyed Olympian, rapid and slim; 60 

The one's two-thirds Norseman, the other half Greek, 

Where the one's most abounding, the other's to seek ; 

C.'s generals require to be seen in the mass, — 

E.'s specialties gain if enlarged by the glass ; 

C. gives nature and God his own fits of the blues, 65 

And rims common-sense things with mystical hues, — 

E. sits in a mystery calm and intense, 

And looks coolly around him with sharp common-sense ; 

C. shows you how e very-day matters unite 

With the dim transdiurnal recesses of night, — 70 

While E., in a plain, preternatural way, 

Makes mysteries matters of mere every day ; 

C. draws all his characters quite d la Fuseli, — 

He don't sketch their bundles of muscles and thews illy, 

But he paints with a brush so untamed and profuse, 75 

They seem nothing but bundles of muscles and thews ; 

E. is rather like Elaxman, lines strait and severe. 

And a colorless outline, but full, round, and clear ; — 

To the men he thinks worthy he frankly accords 

The design of a white marble statue in words. . 80 

C. labors to get at the centre, and then 

Take a reckoning from there of his actions and men ; 

E. calmly assumes the said centre as granted, 

And, given himself, has whatever is wanted. 

" He has imitators in scores, who omit 85 

No part of the man but his wisdom and wit, — 
Who go carefully o'er the sky-blue of his brain. 
And when he has skimmed it once, skim it again ; 
If at all they resemble him, you may be sure it is 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 41 

Because their shoals mirror his mists and obscurities, ^ 
As a mud-puddle seems as deep as heaven for a minute, 
While a cloud that floats o'er is reflected within it. 

" There comes , for instance, to see him's rare sport, 

Tread in Emerson's tracks with legs painfully short ; 

How he jumps, how he strains, and gets red in the face, 95 

To keep step with the mystagogue's natural pace ; 

He follows as close as a stick to a rocket. 

His fingers exploring the prophet's each pocket. 

Fie, for shame, brother bard ; with good fruit of your own, 

Can't you let Neighbor Emerson's orchards alone ? 100 

Besides, 'tis no use, you'll not find e'en a core, — 

has picked up all the windfalls before. 

They might strip every tree, and E. never would catch 'em, 
His Hesperides have no rude dragon to watch 'em ; 
He never suspects how the sly rogues came by 'em ; 105 

He wonders why 'tis there are none such his trees on, 
And thinks 'em the best he has tasted this season." 

BRYANT. 

" There is Bryant, as quiet, as cool, and as dignified, 
As a smooth, silent iceberg, that never is ignified, 
Save when by reflection 'tis kindled 0' nights iio 

With a semblance of flame by the chill Northern Lights. 
He may rank (Griswold says so) first bard of your nation 
(There's no doubt that he stands in supreme ice-olation), 
Your topmost Parnassus he may set his heel on. 
But no warm applauses come, peal following peal on, — 115 
He's too smooth and too polished to hang any zeal on : 
Unqualified merits, I'll grant, if you choose, he has 'em. 
But he lacks the one merit of kindling enthusiasm ; 



42 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL, 

If he stir you at all, it is just, on my soul, 

Like being stirred up by the very North Pole. 120 

"He is very nice reading in summer, but inter 
Nos, we don't want extra freezing in winter ; 
Take him up in the depth of July, my advice is, 
When you feel an Egyptian devotion to ices. 
But, deduct all you can, there's enough that's right good in 
him, 125 

He has a true soul for field, river, and wood in him ; 
And his heart, in the midst of brick walls, or where'er itis, 
Glows, softens, and thrills with the tenderest charities — 
To you mortals that delve in this trade-ridden planet ? 
No, to old Berkshire's hills, with their limestone and granite. 
If you're one who in loco (add /oco here) des^p^s, 131 

You will get of his outermost heart (as I guess) a piece ; 
But you'd get deeper down if you came as a precipice. 
And would break the last seal of its inwardest fountain. 
If you only could palm yourself off for a mountain. 135 

Mr. Quivis, or somebody quite as discerning. 
Some scholar who's hourly expecting his learning, 
Calls B. the American Wordsworth ; but Wordsworth 
Is worth near as much as your whole tuneful herd's worth. 
No, don't be absurd, he's an excellent Bryant ; 140 

But, my friends, you'll endanger the life of your client. 
By attempting to stretch him up into a giant : 
If you choose to compare him, I think there are two per- 
sons fit for a parallel — Thompson and Cowper ; ^ 

1 To demonstrate quickly and easily how per- 
versely absurd 'tis to sound this name Cowper, 
As people in general call him named super, 
I remark that he rhymes it himself with horse-trooper. 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 43 

I don't mean exactly, — there's something of each, 145 

There's T.'s love of nature, C.'s penchant to preach ; 
Just mix up their minds so that C.'s spice of craziness 
Shall balance and neutralize T.'s turn for laziness, 
And it gives you a brain cool, quite frictionless, quiet, 
Whose internal police nips the bud of all riot, — 150 

A brain like a permanent straight-jacket put on 
The heart which strives vainly to burst off a button, — 
A brain which, without being slow or mechanic, 
Does more than a larger less drilled, more volcanic ; 
> He's a Cowper condensed, with no craziness bitten 155 

And the advantage that Wordsworth before him had v*^ritten. 

" But, my dear little bardlings, don't prick up your ears 
Nor suppose I would rank you and Bryant as peers ; 
If I call him an iceberg, I don't mean to say 
There is nothing in that which is grand in its way ; 160 

He is almost the one of your poets that knows 
How much grace, strength, and dignity lie in Eepose ; 
If he sometimes falls short, he is too wise to mar 
His thought's modest fulness by going too far ; 
'Twould be well if your authors should all make a trial 165 
Of what virtue there is in severe self-denial, 
And measure their writings by Hesiod's staff. 
Which teaches that all has less value than half." 

WHITTIER. 

" There is Whittier, whose swelling and vehement heart 
Strains the straight-breasted drab of the Quaker apart, 170 
And reveals the live Man, still supreme and erect, 
Underneath the bemummying wrappers of sect ; 



44 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

There was ne'er a man born who had more of the swing 

Of the true lyric bard and all that kind of thing ; 

And his failures arise (though perhaps he don't know it) 

From the very same cause that has made him a poet, — 176 

A fervor of mind which knows no separation 

'Twixt simple excitement and pure inspiration, 

As my Pythoness erst sometimes erred from not knowing 

If 'twere I or mere wind through her tripod was blowing ; 

Let his mind once get head in its favorite direction 181 

And the torrent of verse bursts the dams of reflection, 

While, borne with the rush of the metre along. 

The poet may chance to go right or go wrong, 

Content with the whirl and delirium of song ; 185 

Then his grammar's not always correct, nor his rhymes. 

And he's prone to repeat his own lyrics sometimes. 

Not his best, though, for those are struck off at white-heats 

When the heart in his breast like a trip-hammer beats. 

And can ne'er be repeated again any more 190 

Than they could have been carefully plotted before : 

Like old what's-his-name there at the battle of Hastings 

(Who, however, gave more than mere rhythmical bastings), 

Our Quaker leads off metaphorical fights 

For reform and whatever they call human rights, 195 

Both singing and striking in front of the war, 

And hitting his foes with the mallet of Thor ; 

Anne haec, one exclaims, on beholding his knocks^ 

VestisJiUi tui, leather-clad Fox? 

Can that be thy son, in the battle's mid din, 200 

Preaching brotherly love and then driving it in 

To the brain of the tough old Goliath of sin. 

With the smoothest of pebbles from Castaly's spring 

Impressed on his hard moral sense with a sling ? 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS, 45 

" All honor and praise to the right-hearted bard 205 

Who was true to The Voice when such service was hard, 
Who himself was so free he dared sing for the slave 
When to look but a protest in silence was brave ; 
All honor and praise to the women and men 
Who spoke out for the dumb and the down-trodden then ! 
I need not to name them for already for each 211 

I see History preparing the statue and niche ; 
They were harsh, but shall yoic be so shocked at hard words 
Who have beaten your pruning-hooks up into swords, 
Whose rewards and hurrahs men are surer to gain 215 

By the reaping of men and of women than grain? 
Why should you stand aghast at their fierce wordy war, if 
You scalp one another for Bank or for Tariff ? 
Your calling them cut-throats and knaves all day long 
Don't prove that the use of hard language is wrong ; 220 
While the World's heart beats quicker to think of such men 
As signed Tyranny's doom with a bloody steel pen. 
While on Fourth-of- Julys beardless orators fright one 
With hints at Harmodius and Aristogeiton, 
You need not look shy at your sisters and brothers 225 

Who stab with sharp words for the freedom of others ; — 
No, a wreath, twine a wreath for the loyal and true 
Who, for sake of the many, dared stand with the few, 
Not of blood-spattered laurel for enemies braved. 
But of broad, peaceful oak-leaves for citizens saved ! " 230 

HAWTHORNE. 

" There is Hawthorne, with genius so shrinking and rare 
That you hardly at first see the strength that is there ; 
A frame so robust, with a nature so sweet, 
So earnest, so graceful, so solid, so fleet, 



46 ^ SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. 

Is worth a descent from Olympus to meet; 235 

'Tis as if a rough oak that for ages had stood, 

With his gnarled bony branches like ribs of the wood, 

Should bloom after cycles of struggle and scathe, 

With a single anemone trembly and rathe ; 

His strength is so tender, his wildness so meek, 240 

That a suitable parallel sets one to seek, — 

He's a John Bunyan Fouque, a Puritan Tieck ; 

When Nature was shaping him, clay was not granted 

For making so full-sized a man as she wanted, 

So, to fill out her model, a little she spared 245 

From some finer-grained stuff for a woman prepared, 

And she could not have hit a more excellent plan 

For making him fully and perfectly man. 

The success of her scheme gave her so much delight. 

That she tried it again, shortly after, in Dwight ; 250 

Only, while she was kneading and shaping the clay. 

She sang to her work in her sweet childish way. 

And found, when she'd put the last touch to his soul. 

That the music had somehow got mixed with the whole." 



POE. 

" There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Eudge, 
Three fifths of him genius and two fifths sheer fudge, 256 
Who talks like a book of iambs and pentameters. 
In a way to make people of common sense damn metres. 
Who has written some things quite the best of their kind, 
But the heart somehow seems all squeezed out by the mind, 
Who — But hey-day! What's this ? Messieurs Matthews 
and Poe, 261 

You mustn't fling mud-balls at Longfellow so. 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 47 

Does it make a man worse that his character's such 

As to make his friends love him (as you think) too much ? 

Why, there is not a bard at this moment alive 265 

More willing than he that his fellows should thrive ; 

While you are abusing him thus, even now 

He would help either one of you out of a slough ; 

You may say that he's smooth and all that till you're hoarse, 

But remember that elegance also is force ; 270 

After polishing granite as much as you will 

The heart keeps its tough old persistency still ; 

Deduct all you can, that still keeps you at bay ; 

Why, he'll live till men weary of Collins and Gray. 

I'm not over fond of Greek metres in English, 275 

To me rhyme's a gain, so it be not too jinglish, 

And your modern hexameter verses are no more 

Like Greek ones than sleek Mr. Pope is like Homer ; 

As the roar of the sea to the coo of a pigeon is. 

So, compared to your moderns, sounds old Melesigenes ; 280 

I may be too partial, the reason, perhaps, o't is 

That I've heard the old blind man recite his own rhapsodies. 

And my ear with that music impregnate may be. 

Like the poor exiled shell with the soul of the sea. 

Or as one can't bear Strauss when his nature is cloven 285 

To its deeps within deeps by the stroke of Beethoven ; 

But, set that aside, and 'tis truth that I speak. 

Had Theocritus written in English, not Greek, 

I believe that his exquisite sense would scarce change a line 

In that rare, tender, virgin-like pastoral Evangeline. 290 

That's not ancient nor modern, its place is apart 

Where time has no sway, in the realm of pure Art, 

'Tis a shrine of retreat from Earth's hubbub and strife 

As quiet and chaste as the author's own life." 



48 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL, 

IRVING. 

" What ! Irving ? thrice welcome, warm heart and fine 
brain, 295 

You bring back the happiest spirit from Spain, 
And the gravest sweet humor that ever were there 
Since Cervantes met death in his gentle despair ; 
Nay, don't be embarrassed, nor look so beseeching, — 
I shan't run directly against my own preaching, 300 

And, having just laughed at their Raphaels and Dantes, 
Go to setting you up beside matchless Cervantes ; 
But allow me to speak what I honestly feel, — 
To a true poet-heart add the fun of Dick Steele, 
Throw in all of Addison, minus the chill, 305 

With the whole of that partnership's stock and good-will, 
Mix well, and, while stirring, hum o'er as a spell, 
The fine old English Gentleman, simmer it well, 
Sweeten just to your own private liking, then strain, 
That only the finest and clearest remain, 310 

Let it stand out of doors till a soul it receives 
From the warm lazy sun loitering down through green 

leaves, 
And you'll find a choice nature, not wholly deserving 
A name either English or Yankee, — just Irving." 

HOLMES. 

" There's Holmes, who is matchless among you for wit ; 
A Ley den-jar always full-charged, from which flit 316 

The electrical tingles of hit after hit ; 
In long poems 'tis painful sometimes, and invites 
A thought of the way the new Telegraph writes, 



A FABLE FOB CBITICS. 49 

Which pricks down its little sharp sentences spitefully 320 

As if you got more than you'd title to rightfully, 

And you find yourself hoping its wild father Lightning 

Would flame in for a second and give you a fright'ning. 

He has perfect sway of what / call a sham metre, 

But many admire it, the English pentameter, 325 

And Campbell, I think, wrote most commonly worse. 

With less nerve, swing, and fire in the same kind of verse, 

Nor e'er achieved aught in't so worthy of praise 

As the tribute of Holmes to the grand Marseillaise. 

You went crazy last year over Bulwer's New Timon ; — 330 

Why, if B., to the day of his dying, should rhyme on, 

Heaping verses on verses and tomes upon tomes. 

He could ne'er reach the best point and vigor of Holmes. 

His are just the fine hands, too, to weave you a lyric 

Full of fancy, fun, feeling, or spiced with satiric 335 

In a measure so kindly, you doubt if the toes 

That are trodden upon are your own or your foes'." 

LOWELL. 

" There is Lowell, who's striving Parnassus to climb 
With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme, 
He might get on alone, spite of brambles and boulders, 340 
But he can't with that bundle he has on his shoulders, 
The top of the hill he will ne'er come nigh reaching 
Till he learns the distinction 'twixt singing and preaching ; 
His lyre has some chords that would ring pretty well. 
But he'd rather by half make a drum of the shell, 345 

And rattle away till he's as old as Methusalem, 
At the head of a march to the last new Jerusalem." 



60 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL, 

WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS. 

GuvENER B. is a sensible man ; 

He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks; 
He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can, 
An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes ; 

But John P. 5 

Robinson he 
Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. 

My ! ain't it terrible ? Wut shall we du ? 

We can't never choose him o' course, — thet's flat; 
Guess we shall hev to come round ; (don't you ?) 10 

An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that ; 
Eer John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. 

Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man : 15 

He's been on all sides thet give places or pelf ; 
But consistency still wuz a part of his plan, — 

He's ben true to one party, — an' thet is himself: — 
So John P. 

Robinson he 20 

Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. 

Gineral C. he goes in fer the war ; 

He don't vally principle more'n an old cud ; 
Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer. 

But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' blood ? 25 

. So John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. 



WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS. 51 

We were gittin' on nicely up here to our village, 

With good old idees o' wut's right an' wut ain't, 30 

We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' jDiHage, 
An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saint ; 
But John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez this kind o' thing's an exploded idee. 35 

The side of our country must oilers be took, 

An' Presidunt Polk, you know, he is our country. 
An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book 
Puts the debit to him, an' to us the per contry ; 

An' John P. 40 

Robinson he 
Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T. 

Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies ; 

Sez they're nothin' on airth but ]Qst fee, faw, fum : 
An' thet all this big talk of our destinies 45 

Is half on it ign'ance, an' t'other half rum ; 
But John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez it ain't no sech thing ; an', of course, so must we. 

Parson Wilbur sez he never heerd in his life 50 

Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tailed coats, 
An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife. 
To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes ; 
But John P. 

Robinson he 55 

Sez they didn't know every thin' down in Judee. 



52 SELECTIONS Fe6m LOWELL. 

Wal, it's a marcy we've gut folk^ to tell us 

The rights an' the wrongs o^ these matters, I vow, — 
God sends country lawyers, an' other wise fellers, 

To start the world's team wen it gits in a slough ; 60 

FerJohnP. 
Eobinson he 
Sez the world'll go riglit, ef he hollers out Gee ! 



THE COURTIN'. 

Zekle crep' up, q,uite unbeknown, 

An' peeked in thru th^ winder, 
And there sot Huldy all alone, 

'ith no one nigh to bender. 

Agin' the chimbly; crooknecks hung, 5 

An' in amongst 'em rusted 
The old queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young 

Fetched back from' Concord busted. 

The walnut logs shot sparkles out 

Towards the pootiest, bless her ! 10 

An' leetle fires danced all about 

The chiny on the dresser. 

The very room, coz she was in, 

Looked warm frum floor to ceilin', 
And she looked full as rosy agin 15 

Ez th' apples she was peelin'. 

She heerd a foot an' knowed it tu, 

A-raspin' on the scraper, — 
All ways to once her f eelins flew 

Like sparks in burnt-up paper. 20 



TEE C0UBTIN\ 53 

He kin' o' I'itered on the mat, 

Some doubtfle o' the seekle ; 
His heart kep' goin' pitypat, 

But hern went pity Zekle. 

And yet she gin her cheer a jerk 25 

Ez though she wished him furder, 
An' on her apples kep' to work 

Ez ef a wager spurred her. 



" You want to see my Pa, I spose ? '^ 
" Well, no ; I come designin' — " 

" To see my Ma ? She's sprinklin' clo'es 
Agin tomorrow's i'nin'." 



30 



He stood a spell on one foot fust, 

Then stood a spell on t'other. 
An' on Avhich one he felt the wust 35 

He couldn't ha' told ye, nuther. 

Sez he, " Pd better call agin " ; 

Sez she, "Think likely, Mister"; 
The last word pricked him like a pin, 

An' — wal, he up an' kist her. 40 

When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips, 

Huldy sot pale as ashes. 
All kind o' smily round the lips 

An' teary round the lashes. 

Her blood riz quick, though, like the tide 45 

Down to the Bay o' Fundy, 
An' all I know is they wuz cried 

In meetin', come nex' Sunday. 



NOTES. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. (Pages 1-13.) 

Lines 1-8. What is the poet's purpose in the first eight lines ? Is 
the musing organist necessary as a key to the structure of the poem ? 
Does the description give necessary color, prepare an atmosphere, or 
does it delay the poem proper ? 

9-20. The preacher and poet were finely interwoven in Lowell's 
nature. His verse frequently reveals precepts of conduct or blazons 
a moral truth. Divest these lines of their figure, and word the lesson 
which Lowell would have them teach. Compare Shakespeare's "ser- 
mons in stones," for a suggestion of moral finger-posts in nature. 
Pupils should be required to put in writing, in a single topic sentence, 
the ideas contained in these lines. Only by a full discussion in the 
class can a proper interpretation of the poet's thought be assured. 

9. " Heaven lies about us in our infancy." — Wordsworth, Inti- 
mations of Immortality. 

12. We Sinais climb : where we might know the will of the Father, 
as Moses on the mountain received the law for his people. 

17. the druid wood : to the druids, the oak was a symbol of God ; 
the clinging mistletoe, of man's dependence upon the Divine Being. 
The mysterious and awful ceremonies of the priests were held in the 
heart of groves of oak. 

18. benedicite : " Praise ye the Lord." " Benedicite omnia opera 
domini." Read Psalm cxlviii. 

21-32. Express the central thought in a single sentence, as directed 
in the note to lines 9-20. What use is made of these two stanzas 
(9-20 and 21-32), in the development of the poem ? 

27. cap and bells : the insignia of a fool. 

55 



56 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. [Pages 2-3. 

33 ff. And what is so rare as a day in June ? etc. : Stedman calls 
this landscape poetry. Expand the idea of his adjective. 

" If it were early June, the rows of horse-chestnuts along the fronts 
of these houses showed, through every crevice of their dark heap of 
foliage and on the end of every drooping limb, a cone of pearly flowers, 
while the hill behind was white or rosy with the crowding blooms of 
various fruit trees. There is no sound, unless a horseman clatters 
over the loose planks of the bridge, while his antipodal shadow glides 
silently over the mirrored bridge below, or unless, — 

" winged rapture, feathered soul of spring^_^ 
Blithe voice of woods, fields, waters, all in one, __. 
Pipe blown through by the warm, mild breath of June 
Shepherding her white flocks of woolly clouds, 
The bobolink has come, and climbs the wind 
With rippling wings that quiver not for flight, 
But only joy, or, yielding to its will. 
Runs down, a brook of laughter, through the air." 

— Lowell, Fireside Travels, 1864. 

49-56. Is this bubbling bird carol in any way analogous to the 
poet's rhapsody over the resistless joy of the spring ? 

55. Scientists say that the song of the male bird, the call to his mate, 
is loud, clear, and distinctive, while the gentle note of the female is 
only loud enough to answer the male or to instruct her young. 

57-60. Vary the expression of these four lines, in order to be sure 
of the thought. 

57-79. Contrast these lines with the solemn stanzas of Bryant's 
autumn verse : — 

" The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, 
Of wailing winds and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. 
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead ; 
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. 
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay. 
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day." 

— The Death of the Flowers. 



Pages 3-4.] NOTES. 57 

Analyze the stanza for the means used by Lowell to produce his 
effect ; compare Bryant's method. 

96 flF. Read Tennyson's The Holy Grail for the story of Sir Perci- 
vale, Sir Bors, Sir Galahad, and Lancelot. 

" Sweet brother, I have seen the Holy Grail: 
For waked at dead of night, I heard a sound 
As of a silver horn from o'er the hills 
Blown, and I thought, ' It is not Arthur's use 
To hunt by moonlight ' ; and the slender sound 
As from a distance beyond distance grew 
Coming upon me. never harp nor horn, 
Nor aught we blow with breath, or touch with hand, 
Was like that music as it came ; and then 
Stream'd thro' my cell a cold and silver beam. 
And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail, 
Rose-red with beatings in it, as if alive, 
Till all the white walls of my cell were dyed 
With rosy colors leaping on the wall ; 
And then the music faded, and the Grail 
Pass'd and the beam decay'd, and from the walls 
The rosy quiverings died into the night." 

— Tennyson, The Holy Grail. 

" . . . I, Galahad, saw the Grail, 
The Holy Grail, descend upon the shrine : 
I saw the fiery face as of a child 
That smote itself into the bread, and went ; 
And hither am I come : and never yet 
Hath what thy sister taught me first to see. 
This Holy Thing, fail'd from my side nor come 
Cover'd, but moving with me night and day. 
Fainter by day, but always in the night 
Blood-red, and sliding down the blackened marsh 
Blood-red, and on the naked mountain top 
Blood-red, and in the sleeping mere below 
Blood-red. And in the strength of this I rode." 

— Tennyson, The Holy Grail. 



58 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. [Page 4. 

Sir Percivale, at the assumption of Sir Galahad into the Spiritual 
City, sees the Grail as it disappears forever from the sight of men. 

" And o'er his head the holy vessel hung 
Redder than any rose, a joy to me, 
For now I knew the veil had been withdrawn. 
Then in a moment when they blazed again 
Opening, I saw the least of little stars 
Down on the waste, and straight beyond the star 
I saw the spiritual city and all her spires 
And gateways in a glory like one pearl — 
No larger, tho' the goal of all the saints — 
Strike from the sea ; and from the star there shot 
A rose-red sparkle to the city, and there 
Dwelt, and I knew it was the Holy Grail, 
Which never eyes on earth again shall see." 

— Tennyson, The Holy Grail. 

A complete analysis of the Arthurian Romances, including the tra- 
ditions of the Grail as treated by early French and English writers, is 
to be found under "Romance," in the Encyclopcedia Britannica. 

Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrim, who during the 
life of Jesus had been afraid to confess belief in Him, boldly avowed 
his faith at the crucifixion and begged from Pilate the body of our 
Lord, which he laid in his own tomb. It is said that Joseph was 
given son vaisseul, the Holy Grail, in which he collected the sacred 
blood of the Saviour which gushed from the spear wound inflicted by 
Longinus, and that this holy treasure remained in Joseph's hands dur- 
ing the forty- three years of his imprisonment by the Jews. Because of 
its possession, the years seemed but three. After his release by Ves- 
pasian, he became the leader of a band of apostles, who brought 
Christianity to Britain and built the abbey of Glastonbury, on the 
south shore of England. Legend says that both the Holy Grail and 
the spear of Longinus were long enshrined here, until removed by 
supernatural power. 

"According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, or 
Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus Christ partook of the last 



Page 4.] NOTES. 69 

supper with his disciples. It was brought into England by Joseph of 
Arimathea, and remained there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, 
for many years, in the keeping of his lineal descendants. It was 
incumbent upon those who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, 
word, and deed; bat, one of the keepers having broken this condition, 
the Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it was a favorite enter- 
prise of the knights of Arthur's court to go in search of it. Sir 
Galahad was at last successful in finding it, as may be read in the 
seventeenth book of the Romance of King Arthur. Tennyson has 
made Sir Galahad the subject of one of the most exquisite of his 
poems. 

"The plot (if I may give that name to anything so slight) of the 
following poem is my own, and, to serve its purposes, I have enlarged 
the circle of competition in search of the miraculous cup hi such a 
manner as to include not only other persons than the heroes of the 
Round Table, but also a period of time subsequent to the date of King 
Arthur's reign." — Lowell. 

" The cup, the cup itself, from which our Lord 
Drank at the last sad supper with His own. 
This, from the blessed land of Aromat — 
After the day of darkness, when the dead 
Went wandering o'er Moriah — the good saint 
Arimathean Joseph, journeying brought 
To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn 
Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our Lord. 
And there awhile it bode ; and if a man 
Could touch or see it, he was heal'd at once 

* By faith, of all his ills. But then the times 
Grew to such evil that the holy cup 
Was caught away to Heaven, and disappear'd. " 

— Tennyson, The Holy Grail. 

99. Grail: from low Latin cratella, 'a chalice' ; there is no suf- 
ficient ground for the etymology which traces the word to agreer, ' to 
please, ' from the gracious influence of the cup. 

107. Does Lowell ennoble the commonplace literary device, a dream, 
by its use in such exalted poetry ? 



60 SELECTIONS FBOM LOWELL. [Pages 5-8. 

109-127. Does this word-painting suggest an artist's canvas ? ' 
Analyze the description, for the method employed in producing the 
picture. '^ 

116. North Countree : of indefinite location, used by Hans Ander- 
sen and others in the lore of fairy tale. 

128 ff. Because of the vividness of every line, it is hard to remem- 
ber that this is still the vision of the slumbering knight. 

130. maiden knight : untried; the idea is repeated in "unscarred 
mail." 

159 ff. "Lowell's New England character forced him to be both 
teacher and preacher." 

168. Does this imply that, when the thread of charity runs through 
the fabric of our characters, the Divine is in each of us ? 

174-180. Compare with the first stanza of Keats's Eve of St. Agnes 
for the effect produced ; which gives the more genuine sense of cold ? 
Why? 

" St. Agnes' Eve, — ah, bitter chill it was ! 
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold ; 
The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass, 
And silent was the flock in woolly fold ; 
Numb were the beadsman's fingers while he told 
His rosary, and while his frosted breath, 
Like pious incense from a censer old. 
Seemed taking flight for heaven without a death. 
Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith." 

174-210. The joy of the poet is as evident in his description of 
■winter as of June. Compare the two for the feeling and the art. 

176. open wold : the unwooded plain. 

184. groined : the intersection of the cylindrical surfaces of 
vaulted ceilings produces angles called 'groins.' See the dictionary 
illustrations. 

190. forest-crypt : the name ' crypt ' was given to a subterranean 
chapel of the Gothic churches ; in a broader way it is applied to an 
underground vault, usually for the dead. 

196. arabesques : fantastic, ornamental patterns. 

211-239. What is the purpose of these lines ? Contrast them 



Pages 8-12.] NOTES. 61 

with Stanzas II, III, and IV of 7%e Eve of St. Agnes. What is the 
difference in feeling ? in result ? Which do you like better ? Why ? 
213. corbel: 'a bracket' ; derivation, a diminutive of Latin, corhis ; 
French, corbeille, 'a basket.' See Century Dictionary. "A piece of 
stone, wood, or iron projecting from the vertical face of a wall to sup- 
port some superincumbent object," 

"The corbells were carved grotesque and grim." 

— Scott, Lay of the Last 3Iinstrel. 

216. Yule-log : burnt in Christmas hospitality, as in the olden 
times it was, in feasting the god Thor. 

233. seneschal: literally, ' old servant ' ; Latin, se?iiscaZci<s. The 
steward of royal palace and princely hall, whose duties were those of 
a major-domo, managing feasts and dispensing hospitality. Some- 
times higher dignity, even military command, was accorded to this 
officer of the household. 

255. surcoat : sur., ' over ' ; cote, ' coat ' ; a loose outer garment 
worn over chain armor, from the thirteenth century to the advent of 
plate armor in the fifteenth. Among the Crusaders it was not only 
emblazoned with the cross, but by its cut, color, and military adorn- 
ment distinctively indicated the followers of the various great leaders. 

291. leprosie : is there other reason for the form of the word 
than the rhyme ? 

305. stood before him glorified : there are many stories of 
Christ's revelation of himself, after humble human service done in 
his name. 

The Legend of Saint Christopher ('Christ-bearer') tells us that 
Offero, a giant of the land of Canaan, resolved to serve only masters 
of fearless heart and mighty power. Wandering to the court of a king 
of great wealth and dominion, he entered his service. But when he 
discovered that his royal master, cowering, crossed himself in terror at 
the name of Satan, he deserted him to join the higher power. Satan 
he served, but only till he found that the cross inspired him with 
craven fear; then, guided by a holy man, Offero became a follower of 
the Great King, rendering humble service in bearing on his mighty 
shoulders, through a rushing stream, the frail, the weak, and the old, 
at a ford where many precious lives had been lost. 



62 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. [Pages 12-17. 

At length came the giant's trial. Through the howling night 
stom a plaintive voice : " Offero, w^ilt thou carry me over ? " With 
difficulty he found a little child, whom he lifted to his shoulder. Seiz- 
ing a great pine tree to serve him as a staff, he began the passage. 
The storm grew fiercer, the winds buffeted hard, crashing thunder and 
blinding lightning came, the child grew to superhuman weight ; though 
fearing to sink, the giant, struggling hard, reached the opposite shore. 

" Whom have I borne ? Had it been the world, it could not have 
been more heavy." 

" Me thou hast desired to serve, and I have accepted thee. Thou 
hast borne not only the whole world, but Him who made it, upon thy 
shoulders. As a sign of my power and of my approbation of thee, fix 
thou thy staff in the earth, and it shall grow and bear fruit." Then 
Offero knew that it was Christ whom he had borne, and he fell down 
and worshipped Him. — Summarized from Mrs. Clement's A Hand- 
book of Legendary Art. 

307. Beautiful Gate : read The Acts iii. 2. 

336. the hangbird : the orchard oriole, or Baltimore oriole. 



SUMMER STORM. (Pages 14-17.) 

Lowell's comment upon Bryant (p. 42, line 126) may be repeated 
of himself : — 

" He has a true soul for field, river, and wood in him." 

What is the effect of the description upon the imagination ? Does 
it create the poet's own glow of emotions ? Is the development, 
through the approach of the storm, its burst of crashing fury, and 
succeeding quiet, vigorous and absorbing ? 

Study the details of the picture; first, the sheep and the loose- 
planked bridge, the idle tide, marked with the water rat's wake, the 
great storm cloud in the west ; then the storm's burst ; and finally, 
study the poet's art in closing with the quiet moon. 

Read the poem aloud ; are the melody of the line, the rhythm, and 
figure equal to the sympathy of the poet's soul with a mood of nature ? 

73. gouts : Latin gustus, ' taste ' ; ' drops,' by secondary meaning. 



Pages 17-21.] NOTES. 63 

ALLEGE A. (Pages 17-18.) 

The name is from the Latin alacris, ' happy,' ' cheerful.' 
Is this a poem upon temperament ? 

3. Hebe : daughter of Juno, cup-bearer to the Olympian gods, 
whose fabled power was to restore to the aged the charm of youth, 

" Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee 
Jest, and youthful jollity, 
Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, 
Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles, 
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek. 
And love to live in dimple sleek." 

— Milton, U Allegro. 
THE ROSE. (Pages 18-21.) 

Study the rhythm of the ballad : is it faultless ? Is the verse flowing 
and melodious ? 

Compare p. 19, lines 13 ff., — 

" Life is vain and love is hollow," etc., 
with p. 20, lines 61 ff.,— 

" Life is joy and love is power," etc., 

If this is both " singing and preaching," express in your own words the 
poet's text and discuss its force. 

RHCECUS. (Pages 21-26.) 

Rhoecus : pronounced Re'-kus. This tale, with minor variations, 
is a bit of classic mythology. See Bulfinch's Age of Fable. According 
to the Greeks, the dryad pledged her love to Rhoicus, exacted his con- 
stancy, and agreed that a bee should, as her messenger, summon him 
at her pleasure. Rhoecus, absorbed in a game of draughts, once 
bruised and brushed aside the bee ; the nymph's love turned at once 
to bitterness, and in anger she deprived Rhoecus of his eyes. 

Keats's Lamia (1819) was perhaps the inspiration of this poem. 

Does the introduction of the first thirty-five lines, through its 
didactic character, delay the poem and lessen its beauty ? 

Stedman contrasts Rhcecus as a piece of art work with Landor's 
Hamadryad. " Landor worked as a Grecian might, giving the tale in 



64 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. [Pages 21-28. 

chiselled verse, with no curious regard for its teachings. Its beauty is 
enough for him, and there it stands — a Periclean vase." 

— American Poets. 
18. hazel twig : this is the " staff " of the Bible (Hosea iv. 12), the 
" virgula divina " of Cicero, the " divining rod " of more recent times. 
When held lightly between the hands, the rod, shaped like a Y, turned 
downwards as its holder walked over precious metal, buried treasure, 
or secret springs. 

136-139. We spirits only show to gentle eyes. 
We ever ask an undivided love, 
And he who scorns the least of Nature's works 
Is thenceforth exiled and shut out from all. 

Here lies the moral of the tale ; does the wording of it overweight 
the poem ? To aid your decision, it is perhaps admissible to compare 
these lines with the Lamia — noting its simplicity, its lack of moralizing 
and reflection, its absence of preaching. 

TO A PINE TREE. (Pages 26^28.) 

•' My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee ; 
The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, 
Who from the dark old tree 
Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, 
And I, secure in childish piety. 
Listened as if I heard an angel sing 
With news from heaven, which he could bring 
Fresh every day to my untainted ears 
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers." 

Is there repeated evidence that Lowell, both as child and man, was 
filled with love of bird and tree and was taught by them to deem 
"More sacredly of everj^ human heart " ? 

Does the diction fill the ear richly ? Are the rhymes perfect ? 
Compare valleys and palace (p. 27, lines 11 and 13). 

1. Katahdin : the mountains of Maine are superb, through the 
grandeur of the pines. Katahdin is the king of the hills (6325 feet in 
height). 



Pages 28-36.] NOTES. 65 

TO THE PAST. (Pages 28-30.) 

13. Asser : 353-427 a.d. ; a rabbi known chiefly as the author and 
compiler of the Babylonian Talmud. 

58. Fortunate Isles : the Greeks located the Elysian Fields in the 
Canaries, into which ' ' happy islands of the blest ' ' mighty heroes 
passed without dying. 

THE OAK. (Pages 31-32.) 

Does the poet's joy in wood and tree dominate him in The Oak, or 
have we to regret the lack of warmth, his "tabulation and enumera- 
tion," which are neither art nor emotion ? 

40. Puck : 

"... Are you not he 
That frights the maidens of the villagery ; 
Skims milk, and sometimes labors in the quern, 
And bootless makes the breathless housewife's churn ; 
And sometime makes the drink to bear no barm ; 
Misleads night-wanderers, laughing at their harm ? " 

41. Lord, all thy works are lessons : this is to confound the 
moralist and the poet. 

" Whenever a work of art is the vehicle for an idea or purpose out- 
side of its essential form, it falls short of being a pure art creation, and 
fails in its appeal to the aesthetic mood, whilst, be it conceded, it may 
serve some other but secondary purpose, which belongs to the province 
of the archaeologist, the art historian, and the collector." — Waldstein. 

THE BIRCH TREE. (Pages 33-34.) 

12. Dryad : the Dryads were the nymphs of the trees, making them 
their abode and dying in them. See p. 23, line 56, — 

" Rhoecus, I am the Dryad of this tree." 

TO THE DANDELION. (Pages 34-36.) 

6. Eldorado : el dorado., ' golden country ' ; a part of South 
America, named by the Spaniards. 

26. Sybaris : a city of Greece, 720-510 b.c. " In the sixth century 
probably no Hellenic city could compare with its wealth and splendor." 



6Q SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. [Pages 36-38. 



ON A PORTRAIT OP DANTE BY GIOTTO. (Pages 36-37.) 

Read Mrs. Oliphant's Makers of Florence, Chapters I-III, for 
Dante's public life and exile ; Chapter IV, for the work of Giotto, 
master painter, builder, and sculptor. 

The burly peasant Giotto's "first great public commission was to 
paint a Paradise over the altar in the chapel of the Podest^, in the old, 
stern Bargello palace. . . . What more natural than that Giotto, 
peacefully painting the saints of his Paradise, should introduce the 
portraits of his friends among them, and above all that special friend 
whose notice of the young painter was so flattering, and whose ac- 
quaintance, at once as a statesman, ambassador, and poet, it was a 
pride to possess ? . . . With a painter's admiration for the beautiful 
countenance, yet unworn with anything worse than the sweet sorrows 
of a visionary love, Giotto set Dante in the front of his group, and thus 
preserved to us forever such a softened representation of the poet's 
face, and along with it of his character, as has been most gratefully 
received by all lovers of Dante." — Makers of Florence. 

12. Beatrice : the poetic story of Dante's exalted yet unrequited 
love for Beatrice Portinari, as told in the Vita Nuova, is still an 
inspiration to poets and an immortal part of literature. 

13. Hesperides : the golden apples which Juno received as her 
marriage gift were guarded by three sisters, aided by the dragon 
Ladon, in some remote, mysterious spot known as the "Garden 
of the Hesperides." See Lovers Labor'' s Lost, IV, 3. 

26. The Neri, a faction of the Guelph party, condemned Dante to 
perpetual banishment. His poverty and many afflictions were the 
inspiration for much of his poetry. 

28 ff. Are the poet-souled necessarily isolated from the world of 
less gifted men ? 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. (Pages 38-49.) 

The selections, though each is complete, make but a fragment of 
the poem. 

LkI C. 



Page 38.] NOTES. 67 

Reader ! walk up at once {it will soon be too late) 
and buy at a perfectly ruinous rate 

A 
FABLE FOR CRITICS. 

OR, BETTER, 

(/ like, as a thing that the reader"* s first fancy may strike , 

an old-fashioned title-page, 
such as presents a tabular view of the volume* s contents y') 

A GLANCE 
AT A FEW OF OUR LITERARY PROGENIES 

{Mrs. Malaprop'' s ivord^ 
From 

THE TUB OF DIOGENES; 

A VOCAL AND MUSICAL MEDLEY 
THAT IS 

A SERIES OF JOKES 
Bg a SSHontierfuI ©ut^, 

Who accompanies himself ivith a rub-a-dub-dub, full of spirit and gracCy 
on the top of the tub. 

Set forth in October, the 31st day, 

In the year '48, G. P, Putnam, Broadway. 

This humorous title-page was followed, in the original edition of 
1848, by a preface which, though light in tone, states with sincerity 



68 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. [Pages 38-44. 

that "All the characters sketched in this slight jeii d'' esprit . . . are 
meant to be faithful." (The italics are Lowell's.) 

1. Emerson : "I know what is meant by a caricature and what 
by a portrait." Which is given here ? 

27. Plotinus : 204-270 a.d. ; a Greek philosopher, who was born 
in Egypt. He was a teacher of the neo-Platonic philosophy in Rome 
for twenty-five years. 

"He was intensely religious, and if he had come a century later 
would, instead of a heathen philosopher, have been one of the first 
names among the saints of the church." — Hallam. 

Montaigne : 1533-1592 ; a Gascon philosopher and essayist, whose 
writings have had an extraordinary influence upon the taste and 
opinions of Europe. 

* ' The Essays are an interesting soliloquy on every random topic 
that comes into his head, treating everything without ceremony, yet 
with masculine sense. There have been men with deeper insight, but, 
one would say, never a man with such abundance of thought : he is 
never dull, never insincere, and has the genius to make the reader 
care for all that he cares for." — Emerson. 

51 ff. What is your opinion of the comparison with Carlyle — is it 
mere words, or shrewd analysis ? 

112. Griswold : a Baptist minister, of a kindly and impartial mind, 
who was the author of Frose Writers of America (1842). 

121. inter nos : just between ourselves. 

131. in loco (add foco here) desipis : you who at the proper time 
(add " by the fireside " here) indulge in trifling. 

136. Mr. Quivis : Mr. "So-and-so." 

144. Thompson and Cowper were great rivals in poetic description 
of rural scenes ; the first, in the Seasons (1730), maintains an "un- 
varied pomp of diction," while the latter wrote, in all his poems, with 
" manly and idiomatic simplicity." 

167. Hesiod : a Greek poet, 800 b.c. 

198. Anne haec, . . . Vestis filii tui : ' can this be the dress of 
thy son ? ' 

203. Castaly's spring : a sacred fountain springing from the side 
of Mount Parnassus, which inspired those who drank from it with the 
gift of poetry. 



Pages 45-50.] NOTES. 69 

224. Harmodius and Aristogeiton : Athenian heroes who, con- 
spiring against the tyrannical Pisistratidae, were martyred, 525 b.c. 

242. Fouque : 1777-1843 ; a German writer, whose powerful imagi- 
nation was thrilled by Northern traditions. Undine is one of the most 
exquisite conceptions of his rare genius. Tieck : 1773-1853 ; Lud- 
vig Tieck, a German poet and novelist, who wrote much that was 
weird and gloomy. 

250. D wight : 1786-1850 ; Sereno Edwards, was the son of Presi- 
dent Timothy D wight of Yale, and grandson of Jonathan Edwards ; 
he practiced law for ten years, then became the pastor of the Park 
Street Church in Boston. He abandoned both professions to become 
a teacher, and afterward was president of Hamilton College. 

261. Matthews : Cornelius, author of novels and plays, and maga- 
zine writer. Read Poe's Mr. Longfellow and Other Plagiarists, which 
caused Lowell's protest against the flinging of "mud-balls." 

280. Old Melesigenes : ' Meles-born.' Homer, by tradition, was 
born in Ionia, upon the banks of the Meles. 

290. Is this estimate of Evangeline just and adequate ? 

295. Irving ; the years from 1826 to 1829, which Irving spent in 
Spain, were years of arduous literary toil. The Life of Columbus, The 
Conquest of Granada, and The Alhambra, which Prescott called a. 
Spanish Sketch-Book, were the fruits of his labor. 

326. Campbell : read The Battle of the Baltic, to appreciate the 
fire of the poet. 

WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS. (Pages 50-52.) 

1. Guvener B. : George N, Briggs was the Whig governor of 
Massachusetts, from 1843 to 1851. 

15. Gineral C. : Caleb Gushing, who was a stanch supporter of 
the Mexican War. He raised and equipped a regiment, which he 
commanded in the campaign of 1847. Upon his return from the war, 
he was a candidate for governor of Massachusetts. 

This poem, with its dialect, argument, and satire, is typical of the 
strength of the Biglow Papers, from which it is selected, 

Lowell's title-page to the first edition of the Biglow Papers was 
followed by droll "Notices of the Press," written by Lowell himself, 



70 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. [Page 50. 

satirizing newspaper puff or condemnation of an author's effort. The 
selections reveal, under the guise of humor, a powerful use of ridicule, 
which is perhaps the strongest characteristic of the Papers. The title- 
page and some of the notices are as follows : — 



THE 

BIGLOW PAPERS, 

EDITED, 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION, NOTES, GLOSSARY, 
AND COPIOUS INDEX, 



HOMER WILBUR, A.M., 

PASTOR OF THE FIRST CHURCH IN JALAAM 
And [prospecti've) member of many literary, learned, and scientijic societies. 

Notices op an Independent Press. 

From the Universal Literary Universe. 

Full of passages which rivet the attention of the reader. . . . Under 
a rustic garb, sentiments are conveyed which should be committed to 
the memory and graven on the heart of every moral and social being. 
. . , We consider this a unique performance. . , . We hope to see 
it soon introduced into our common schools. . . . Mr, Wilbur has 
performed his duties as editor with excellent taste and judgment. . . . 
This is a vein which we hope to see successfully prosecuted. . . . We 
hail the appearance of this work as a long stride towards the formation 
of a purely aboriginal, indigenous, native, and American literature. 
We rejoice to meet with an author national enough to break away from 
the slavish deference, too common among us, to English grammar and 



Page 50.] NOTES. 71 

orthography. . , , Where all is so good, we are at loss how to make 
extracts. ... On the whole, we may call it a volume which no 
library, pretending to entire completeness, should fail to place upon 
its shelves. 

From the Higginhottomopolis Snapping-turtle. 

A collection of the merest balderdash and doggerel that it was ever 
our bad fortune to lay eyes on. The author is a vulgar buffoon, and 
the editor a talkative, tedious old fool. We use strong language, but 
should any of our readers peruse the book (from which calamity 
Heaven preserve them) they will find reasons for it thick as the leaves 
of Vallumbrozer, or, to use a still more expressive comparison, as the 
combined heads of author and editor. This work is wretchedly got 
up. . . . We should like to know how much British gold was pocketed 
by this libeller of our country and her purest patriots. 

From the Saltriver Pilot and Flag of Freedom. 

A volume in bad grammar and in worse taste. . . . While the 
pieces here collected were confined to their appropriate sphere in the 
corners of obscure newspapers, we considered them wholly beneath 
contempt, but, as the author has chosen to come forward in this pub- 
lic manner, he must expect the lash he so richly merits. . . . Con- 
temptible slanders. . . . Vilest Billingsgate. . . . Has raked all the 
gutters of our language. . . . The most pure, upright, and consistent 
politicians not safe from his malignant venom. , . . General Gushing 
comes in for a share of his vile calumnies. . . . The Beverend Homer 
Wilbur is a disgrace to his cloth. . . . 

Fi'om the Onion Grove Phoenix. 

A talented young townsman of ours, recently returned from a con- 
tinental tour, and who is already favorably known to our readers by 
his sprightly letters from abroad which have graced our columns, 
called at our office yesterday. We learn from him that, having 
enjoyed the distinguished privilege, while in Germany, of an introduc- 
tion to the celebrated Von Humbug, he took the opportunity to 
present that eminent man with a copy of the Biglow Papers. The 
next morning he received the following note, which he has kindly 
furnished us for publication. We prefer to print it verbatim^ know- 



72 SELECTIONS FROM LOWELL. [Pages 50-53, 

ing that our readers will readily forgive the few errors into which the 
illustrious writer has fallen, through ignorance of our language. 
" High- Worthy Mister! 

"I shall also now especially happy starve, because I have more or 
less a work of one of those aboriginal Red-Men seen in which have I 
so deaf an interest ever taken full-worthy on the self shelf with our 
Gottsched to be upset. 

" Pardon my in the English-speech un-practice ! 

"Von Humbug." 

THE COURTIN'. (Pages 52-53.) 

The Coicrtin'' is taken from the Biglow Papers. The "editor" 
of the Papers makes this reference to the poem : — 

" [The following genuine " notice " having met my eye, I gladly in- 
sert a portion of it here, the more especially as it contains one of Mr. 
Biglow's poems not elsewhere printed. — H. W. ] 

'•'• From the Jaalam Lidependent Blunderbuss. 

"... But, while we lament to see our young townsman thus min- 
gling in the heated contests of party politics, we think we detect in him 
the presence of talents which if properly directed might give an inno- 
cent pleasure to many. As a proof that he is competent to the 
.production of other kinds of poetry, we copy for our readers a short 
fragment of a pastoral by him, the manuscript of which was loaned 
us by a friend. The title of it is The Courtiii'.'''' 



ENGLISH. 



Studies in English Composition. 

By Harriet C. Keeler, High School, Cleveland, Ohio, and Emma 
C. Davis, Cleveland, Ohio. i2mo, cloth, 219 pages. Price, 80 cents. 

THE main principle of this book is that pupils learn to write by 
writing. Accordingly it has little to do with theories of rhet- 
oric, and deals largely with practical helps on the work assigned. 
Many topics for composition adapted to the needs of high school 
pupils are given in the exercises, and many more are suggested in 
a supplementary list. The experience of the authors has led them 
to believe that it is of the utmost importance that pupils be sup- 
plied with good models. These are furnished in abundance, and 
serve the double purpose of defining clearly to the pupil the nature 
of his task, and of keeping before him during its performance an 
ideal toward which he may strive. By following these methods 
in their own classes, the authors find that they can overcome self- 
consciousness in their pupils — the first great barrier to the de- 
velopment of originality. The pupil is encouraged to obser\-e 
and write, and criticism is left till something to criticise has been 
produced. 

R. Adelaide Witham, Latin School, Somerville, Mass. : I have found the 
Keeler and Davis Composition book more satisfactory than any of its 
competitors for use in the lower classes of the High School. Its chief aim 
— that of inducing the pupil to write first and correct afterward — is fol- 
lowed consistently and intelligently. Rules and examples, the bane of the 
old-fashioned rhetorics, are minimized here, so that more attractive and 
less text-book-like matter holds the prominent place. The least that can 
be said for the book is that it is tise/ul both to teachers and pupils. Senior 
pupils have often come to me to borrow their freshman text-book for 
reference. 

J. Tuckerman, High School, Wallingford, Conn. ; I have examined care- 
fully your Studies in English Composition, and I am highly pleased with 
it. I find it just the thing I have been looking for. . . . The study of 
English, as directed by this book, must be the finest thing in the world. 
The more I think of your book, the better I like it. 

Edward H. Cobb, English High School, Boston : Studies in English Com- 
position by Keeler and Davis is good, because practical. Pupils deal 
with selections from the best authors ; and the particular point which the 
author has in mind is worked into the pupils' daily writing, which is often 
turned on their own experiences. f 



ENGLISH. 



An Elementary Composition Book. 

By Professor F. N. ScOTT, of the University of Michigan, and Pro- 
fessor J. V. Denney, of Ohio State University. Cloth, 249 pages. 
Price, 80 cents. 

THE authors of this book believe that "young persons do not 
learn to write good English by reading and reciting treat- 
ises on rhetoric. . . . Composition in the schools/' they say, 
" has long been under a curse, and not without reason. It has 
lacked substance, vitality, enrichment, . . . But now composi- 
tion seems to be coming into its rights. . . . The time is at 
hand when the opportunities for scholarship and general culture 
in this branch of instmction will be generally recognized. The 
authors venture the hope that the Elementary English Composi- 
tion may play some small part in hastening the advent of this 
golden age." 

From cover to cover the book is alive and active ; it must in- 
evitably come as a breath of fresh inspiration to pupils, and as a 
wealth of suggestion to teachers. 

The manual of Notes and Suggestions that accompanies the 
book contains the authors' recommendations as to methods, 
many exercises and other additional material, and valuable refer- 
ences on subjects connected with the work. 



Samuel Thurber, Gir/s High School, Bosto?i, Mass. : In their Elementary 
English Composition, Messrs, Scott and Denney have struck the right 
key. Their ideas are quite in harmony with my own theory and prac- 
tice, though they have thought out a mass of material quite surpassing 
all my achievements in that line, and present illustrations and give hints 
with a fertility of invention that is really imposing. They know how to 
pique curiosity. This is the great thing. I want my better pupils to 
clamor to hear a composition because they believe it will interest them. 
The school public must be kept in view, and young writers must write to 
be read by this public. Thus the subject of the writing becomes all- 
important, and material must be gathered for pupils whose minds do not 
readily apprehend the possibilities that lie unsuspected all about them. 
Messrs. Scott and Denney's plan is to furnish the young mind and stimu- 
late the young imagination as the proper preliminary to writing. This 
idea is wholly reasonable and right, I admire their book without quali- 
fication. It will aid and guide my own teaching. 



ENGLISH. 



Composition-Rhetoric for Use in Secondary 
Schools. 

ByProfessorF. N.Scott, of the University of Michigan, and Professor 
J. V. Denney, of Ohio State University. i2mo, cloth, 416 pages. 
Price, ^i.oo. 

IN this book the authors have attempted to bring about a closer 
union between composition and rhetoric, a more extended 
use of the paragraph as a unit of composition, and a wider recog- 
nition of the idea of growth in composition work. The rhetoric 
given in the book is meant to be the theory of the pupil's actual 
practice. The paragraph is made the basis of a systematic 
method of instruction. Throughout the book, the composition 
is regarded, not as a dead form to be analyzed into its component 
parts, but as a living product of an active, creative mind. The 
illustrative material has been chosen with especial care for its 
fitness and intrinsic interest. An appendix gives 'an outline of 
formal rhetoric for courses that require a study of the subject 
apart from composition. 

Emily I. Meader, Classical High School, Providence, R.I. : I hke the 
make-up of the book better than that of any other book I have seen, 
especially because of its emphasis on the paragraph as the basis of com- 
position work. . . . The examples are uniformly well chosen from 
standard authors intrinsically interesting, and are happy instances of the 
application of the principles involved. The choice of examples in a text 
book is so important a factor of its usefulness that this point of excellence 
deserves particular mention. 

Edith R. Dunton, High School, Rutland, Vert}Wfit : I cannot praise it 
highly enough. 

Professor Sophie C. Hart, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass. : As a 
whole, I consider it the best book on Enghsh Composition for the 
preparatory school, and shall recommend it to all teachers who send 
students to Wellesley. 

Eva March Tappan, Ph.D., English High School, Worcester, Mass. : There 
are rhetorics by the score that would help Macaulay and Tennyson to 
criticise their own work, and that do assist the struggling pupil to put 
thoughts into plain English ; but Scott and Denney's is the only rhetoric 
with which I am familar that will mitigate the sufferings of the pupil who 
does not know " what to say," that will really help him to develop thought, 
and then to stiffen up even the rather limp ideas into form and comeliness. 



ENGLISH. 



Paragraph-Writing. 



By Professor F. N. ScoTT, of the University of Michigan, and Pro- 
fessor J. V. Denney, of Ohio State University. i2mo, 304 pages. 
Price, ^i.oo. 

THE principles embodied in this work were developed and 
put in practice by its authors at the University of Michigan. 
Its aim is to make the paragraph the basis of a method of com- 
position, and to present all the important facts of rhetoric in their 
application to it. 

The book is in three parts : the first on the nature and laws of 
the paragraph ; the second, for teachers and advanced students, 
on the theory of the paragraph ; and the third consisting of refer- 
ences and material for class work. 

It contains a chapter on the Rhetoric of the Paragraph, in 
which will be found applications of the paragraph idea to the 
sentence and "to the constituent parts of the sentence, so far as 
these demand especial attention. 

Professor J. M. Hart, Cornell University : The style of the writers is admi- 
rable for clearness and correctness. . . . They have produced an uncom- 
monly sensible text-book. . . . For college work it will be hard to beat. 
I know of no other book at all comparable to it for freshman drill. 

Professor Charles Mills Gayley, Utiiversity of California : Paragraph- 
Writing is the best thing of its kind, — the only systematic and exhaustive 
effort to present a cardinal feature of rhetorical training to the educational 
world. 

Introduction to Theme-Writing. 

By J. B. Fletcher, of Harvard University, and Professor G. R. Car- 
penter, of Columbia College. i6mo, cloth, 143 pages. Price, 60 cents. 

THE lectures that form the basis of this book were delivered 
by Mr. Fletcher in one of the courses for the Freshman class 
at Harvard University. These have been rearranged, with addi- 
tional matter, by Professor Carpenter. The result is a text-book 
for students who have completed the introductory course in rhet- 
oric usually prescribed at the beginning of the Freshman year. 



Jan - 22 1901 



JMI1 A/ \^{J[ 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proces 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 

PreservationTechnologie 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATIC 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 

l79A\77Q-9^■i^ 



